A subsea infrastructure project, Via Africa, has been unveiled to strengthen connectivity between Europe and Africa, aiming to enhance the resilience and diversity of West Africa’s international communications.
The Via Africa project will comprise a submarine cable system that will connect Europe to Africa along the Atlantic coast, and provide a subsea route alongside existing infrastructure at a time when, says the consortium, demand for cloud services, artificial intelligence (AI) workloads and international traffic is rapidly increasing across the continent.
The communications system aims to connect Europe to South Africa – including landing points in the UK, France and Portugal – with destinations along the Atlantic coastline such as the Canary Islands, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. Including extensions further south, the net result will be to contribute to greater diversity and resilience of international connectivity serving Africa, by providing a different subsea route than existing infrastructure and strengthening the robustness of regional connectivity.
It will operate under a consortium model, and participating operators will be able to co-invest in the infrastructure and play a direct role in governance, deployment and future operation. By being managed as a consortium, the project is seen as enabling participating partners seeking autonomy and sovereignty to co-invest in the infrastructure and take part in its governance.
They add that such a “robust and proven” model allows investors to participate directly in the decisions regarding the design, deployment and exploitation of the system, and contribute to decisions that best meet their needs.
Major investors that have a signed a memorandum of understanding to initiate the scheme include major European telcos Vodafone and Orange Group, as well as Guilab, International Mauritania Telecom, Orange Côte d’Ivoire, Silverlinks, Senegalese operator Sonatel, and Canalink, whose business connects Africa, the Canary Islands and Europe.
The partners say they have a shared ambition to develop international connectivity, to support traffic growth and to strengthen the resilience of networks across the African continent. The initial telco and digital player partners say they are open to additional partners potentially joining the project in the future.
As part of the initial phase of the project, consortium members will jointly finance a cable route study to identify the optimal cable route that balances resilience, technical feasibility and overall economic efficiency. In parallel, the consortium is preparing the procurement process for selecting a cable supplier, marking the next step in the development of the system.
On behalf of Orange, Via Africa adds to the Medusa Submarine Cable System, designed to transform infrastructure in the Mediterranean region. Owned by African infrastructure and telecoms operator AFR-IX Telecom, and which made its first landing on European soil in October 2025, Medusa is 8,760km long, and will be the first and longest subsea cable to connect the main Mediterranean countries, providing access to telecommunications infrastructure and 16 landing points around the Mediterranean Sea.
Operationally, Medusa has two main regions: Europe and North Africa. In Europe, it has local operational branches in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. These branches hold licenses and permits. The Network Operations Centre is based in Europe. In North Africa, Medusa has agreements with local licensed operators for landing parties.
Medusa is seen as being crucial for developing the digital ecosystem of populations in North African countries, taking a significant step towards closing the digital divide between Europe and North Africa, connecting countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Egypt with high-capacity fibre-optic links to six European Union member states: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Cyprus.
