Dalia Energy plans fiber optic cable from Ashdod to Europe

Dalia Energy (TASE: DLIA) has received a license from the Ministry of Communications to construct an anchor station for a submarine fiber optic cable on the Eshkol site next to Ashdod Port, “Globes” has learned. Dalia Energy is believed to be planning to lay a submarine cable with its own financing or in partnership with European players. At present it does not plan to deploy on its site the cables that are already in the process of planning and approval: the submarine cable of Hot-Tamares and a group of Greek telecommunications operators (EMC), or that of the Keystone-Kobi Richter consortium (TEAS).

The submarine cable will serve Dalia Energy for the transmission and storage of data at the server farm that it is building in the area with an output of 200 megawatts and a cost of billions of shekels, and will assist it in the high-speed transmission of data to other server farms overseas. The server farm will mainly be used as an AI factory, that is, an installation for training and operating AI models, for which high-speed communications with other server farms around the world are important.

As the planning and financing of Dalia Energy’s submarine cable proceed, and in accordance with progress on the construction of the power plant and server farm at the site, the company will decide whether to open up the fiber optic cable to local telecommunications networks as well, but that will require the company to apply for a telecommunications operating license.

The company could also plan to extend the cable eastwards, with an overland connection to Jordan or the Red Sea, a scenario that in the current geopolitical situation is not possible because of Saudi Arabia’s shunning of Israel and adherence to the Turkey-Qatar axis.

Dalia Energy bought the Eshkol power station in June 2024, and is currently constructing a new, 850-megawatt power plant on the site at an investment of over NIS 10 billion, and alongside it a 200-megawatt server farm. The proximity of the server farm to the power plant, seawater cooling channels, and a submarine fiber optic cable, will enable it to process data at high rates and to attract businesses interested in proximity to a server farm, such as algo trading companies and AI technology companies.

Dalia Energy will not begin to lay the cable before it obtains approval from the Planning Administration, which at present favors concentrating submarine cable landings at existing points: Tirat Carmel and Tel Aviv. The Ministry of Communications favors the opposite approach: deploying fiber optic cables at as many points along Israel’s coastline as possible, in order to avoid over-dependence on a few landing points.