Airtel has successfully landed the 2Africa Pearls subsea cable in India, a key step in enhancing the country’s international connectivity. This cable system links India to Africa and Europe via the Middle East, significantly boosting global data transmission capacity.
As the official landing partner, Airtel is working alongside Meta and center3, two major investors in the project. The 2Africa Pearls system is designed to deliver over 100 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth to India, reinforcing Airtel’s position in global network infrastructure and supporting the nation’s digital expansion.
The 2Africa Pearls extension is part of the broader 2Africa cable system, which, when completed, will span over 45,000 kilometers, making it one of the longest subsea networks globally. This system connects Asia, Africa, and Europe, with key stops in the Middle East.
The 2Africa consortium includes major telecom players such as Meta, Vodafone Group, China Mobile International, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Bayobab, WIOCC, and center3. The cable is being manufactured and installed by Alcatel Submarine Networks.
Commenting on this, Sharat Sinha, Director & CEO – Airtel Business, said, “We are thrilled to bring the 2Africa Pearls cable to India adding to our network resilience. We are aggressively diversifying our global network and recently landed the SEA-WE-ME-6 cable in Chennai and Mumbai. We will continue investing in global cable systems and future-proof our network with an aim to deliver high uptime, reliability, and superior quality network to our customers.”
Airtel already operates a vast global network infrastructure spanning 400,000 route kilometers (Rkms) across 50 countries and five continents. The company has invested in 34 subsea cable systems, including projects like 2Africa, Southeast Asia-Japan Cable 2 (SJC2), and Equiano.
In addition to 2Africa Pearls, Airtel’s subsea investments include:
- i2i Cable Network (i2icn)
- Europe India Gateway (EIG)
- IMEWE
- SEA-ME-WE-4
- AAG
- Unity
- EASSy
- Gulf Bridge International (GBI)
- Middle East North Africa Submarine Cable (MENA Cable)
These investments are aimed at strengthening India’s global connectivity, linking the country to Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
