Скачать или смотреть Cairo Data Centre Fire Exposes Egypt’s Fragile Infrastructure

A blaze at Cairo's vital Ramses Exchange crippled telecom, banking and transport systems across Egypt, exposing how years of centralisation and opaque governance have left the country’s digital backbone critically exposed.⁠
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On Monday, 7 July, at around 4pm Cairo local time (2pm GMT), a fire broke out on the upper floors of Ramses data centre in downtown Cairo - a building underpinning much of Egypt’s digital connectivity.⁠
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The financial technology sector took a heavy blow. Mobile payment platforms collapsed, ATMs froze and card machines in shops stopped working. The National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr issued official apologies to their clients.⁠
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Middle East Eye spoke with experts and technology activists who shed light on the scale of the crisis, but requested anonymity due to safety concerns. ⁠
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“This was not just a glitch. It was a national crisis,” said one communications security expert. “A single strike on one building paralysed a nation’s infrastructure.”⁠
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Despite the communications ministry’s claim that Ramses is not the sole hub, metrics suggest otherwise. A public update on X confirmed that network data show national connectivity in Egypt at 62 percent of ordinary levels amid the fire.⁠
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Masaar, a technology rights foundation, published a research paper on the day following the fire, concluding that the outage seemed immediate and impacted several internet service providers simultaneously - evidence of the Ramses centre’s pivotal role in routing internet traffic across the country.⁠
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Although Egypt’s telecom sector has been officially liberalised, it remains tightly state-controlled.⁠
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“Telecom Egypt, which is majority-owned by the state, dominates fixed-line infrastructure and leases the backbone to other operators,” an independent telecom consultant said.⁠
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