Aqua Comms owner to spend £50m on Europe-Middle East-India cable

The owner of Aqua Comms is making its first new investment in a subsea cable following its US$215 million takeover in April.

The company, now owned by Digital 9 Infrastructure (D9), is to build Europe Middle-East India Connect 1 (EMIC-1).

Thor Johnsen (pictured), head of digital infrastructure at Triple Point, which set up the D9 fund, said: “This investment reaffirms D9’s guiding principle: to improve digital infrastructure globally and reduce the digital divide.”

D9 put the value of its investment at £50 million over three years and said it was partnering with an unnamed “leading global content provider and consortium”.

Neither the content company nor the consortium was named. Nor has Aqua Comms identified the landing stations at any point on the route. EMIC-1 is not yet included on TeleGeography’s submarine cable map.

The investment company said: “The new system is an innovative, carrier-neutral network platform between Europe, the Middle-East and India comprising subsea and terrestrial fibre assets which will connect key locations in these regions.” Aqua Comms will manage the cable, said D9.

Johnsen said: “We continue to make progress on the company’s wider pipeline of investment opportunities and we look forward to providing further updates to the market on these in due course. In addition, we expect this innovative network to unlock further digital infrastructure opportunities.”

D9 noted that, “following completion of the new system, the company will have an interest in approximately 30,000km of subsea and related terrestrial fibre networks, connecting four continents”. Capacity Media