Connectivity: Seacom announces new submarine cable project through Africa
September 26th 2025
In 2024, Seacom cable outages caused by ship anchors affected several East African countries. The company decided to strengthen its digital infrastructure.
Pan-African digital infrastructure company Seacom announced a submarine cable project at the Submarine Networks World 2025 conference held on Wednesday, September 24, in Singapore. The infrastructure, dubbed Seacom 2.0, aims to connect the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Southern Europe, placing Africa at the heart of international digital flows.
“ From the establishment of Africa’s first private submarine cable in 2009 to the current development of Seacom 2.0, Seacom continues to foster the continent’s integration into the global digital landscape, fostering innovation, resilience and long-term competitiveness, ” reads a LinkedIn post from the company.
Seacom 2.0 will be AI-ready, designed to support the data volumes, latencies, and loads associated with artificial intelligence, cloud, and next-generation digital ecosystems. It is designed to anticipate disruptions, with diversified routes and neutral landing points to reduce the risk of outages.
According to the report “The Impact of Submarine Cables on Internet Access Price, and the Role of Competition and Regulation” published in June 2025 by the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (FERDI), the installation of submarine cables leads to a rapid fall in Internet prices, particularly in Africa where access costs are historically high.
Seacom 2.0 could also help improve bandwidth and further foster the emergence of data centers on the continent. However, challenges remain in terrestrial interconnection (national fiber networks) and regulatory alignment between countries. These parameters will need to be addressed for the project’s expected impact to be realized.
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