Lightstorm Forms Middle East Partnerships With Kalaam Telecom and GDH

Lightstorm Telecom has begun operations in the Middle East after forming partnerships with Kalaam Telecom and GDH (Gulf Data Hub). Lightstorm is the digital network infrastructure division of the U.S. private equity firm I Squared Capital, specializing in constructing hyper scale networking infrastructure throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia. As part of its drive into the Middle East, Lightstorm has revealed that it will invest millions of dollars in the region to increase its footprint there. Through its relationships with Kalaam and GDH, Lightstorm will supply Middle Eastern businesses with cutting-edge digital infrastructure.

Kalaam of Bahrain offers telecom services and solutions, while GDH of the UAE specializes in data center solutions. In the last month, GDH disclosed plans to extend its presence in Egypt by constructing three data center campuses totaling 192MW, which would increase to 300MW in five to seven years. Lightstorm will provide its collaborators with Polarin, which it characterizes as a completely cloud-aligned, self-service Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform. Lightstorm offers fiber networks through its SmartNet Network and has expanded this network to include 22,000 miles of fiber linking more than 50 data facilities across 5 major economic hotspots in India, as well as integrating more than 40 data centers via SmartNet Indonesia in the JABO region last year. Lightstorm asserts that the SmartNet network's utility-grade architecture guarantees 100 percent uptime. I Squared Capital invested $300 million in the business in 2019.

I Squared Capital has just established German Edge data center company nLighten, announcing intentions for a formal debut in ten German sites later this year.