From Kuwait to Brazil: Inside the network behind real-time robotic surgery

Zain Omantel International (ZOI), working alongside Zain Kuwait and a consortium of healthcare and technology partners, has enabled a Guinness World Record-breaking remote robotic surgery spanning more than 12,000km between Kuwait and Brazil. The landmark procedure demonstrates how purpose-built, ultra-low latency networks are moving digital healthcare from pilot projects to real-world, mission-critical use.

The operation involved a surgical team based at Jaber Al-Ahmad Hospital in Kuwait performing a live robotic procedure on a patient located at Hospital Cruz Vermelha in Brazil. The achievement set a new Guinness World Record for the longest distance ever travelled by a surgeon to a patient during a remote surgery.

At the heart of the operation was a carefully engineered international and local network designed to deliver the resilience, stability and predictable performance required for live telesurgery. ZOI provided the international transport services across a route linking Kuwait, Marseille and São Paulo (Equinix SP4), while Zain Kuwait delivered the local access networks connecting the hospital and surgical systems.

The joint networking strategy achieved an end-to-end latency of just 199 milliseconds, an average bandwidth of 80Mbps, and a packet loss of only 0.19%. These metrics are critical in robotic surgery, where even small delays or inconsistencies can affect precision and safety. The near-real-time performance allowed surgeons to control the robotic system as if they were physically present with the patient, despite the vast geographical separation.

The project was delivered in collaboration with Kuwait’s Ministry of Health (MOH), the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS), Jaber Al-Ahmad Hospital, and international clinical and technology partners. A Guinness World Records representative attended the press conference at Zain Kuwait’s headquarters to formally present certificates to the Minister of Health, the surgical team, Zain and KFAS, confirming the record-setting achievement by teams in Kuwait and Brazil.

Beyond the record itself, the surgery serves as a practical demonstration of how telecommunications infrastructure is becoming a foundational enabler of advanced digital healthcare. Remote robotic surgery has long been discussed as a way to address shortages of specialist skills, improve access to care in remote regions and support faster emergency interventions. However, its widespread adoption depends on networks capable of delivering consistent, low-latency performance at a global scale.

“ZOI’s strategic investment in digital infrastructure that directly enables local innovations at a global scale provides a foundation for connecting low-latency applications and services across the globe,” said Sohail Qadir, CEO of Zain Omantel International. “This is what coordinated delivery with local access and international backbone can achieve.”

The surgery was performed on a live production network using a route purpose-built for predictable latency, with multiple diverse paths on standby to ensure continuity in case of disruption. According to ZOI, this approach reflects how networks supporting critical applications must be engineered and operated differently from traditional best-effort connectivity.

“This level of precision over 12,000km is only possible when every part of the network is engineered and operated for consistent low-latency performance,” said Qadir. “Our role was to ensure a stable, predictable international route so the surgical team could focus on the patient while we took accountability for the network.”

For ZOI and Zain Kuwait, the project also underlines how telecommunications providers are positioning themselves beyond connectivity, as partners in national digital transformation agendas. While healthcare is an obvious use case, the same network principles apply to other latency-sensitive applications, including industrial automation, immersive collaboration and real-time AI-driven services.

As governments and healthcare systems continue to explore digital-first models of care, the success of this record-breaking surgery suggests that the technical barriers to global telesurgery are rapidly diminishing. The focus is now shifting to how such capabilities can be scaled safely, securely and sustainably, turning a world record into a new normal for connected healthcare.