China Mobile International (CMI), along with seven global partners including Bayobab, center3, Meta, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Group and WIOCC, has jointly completed the core 2Africa Submarine Cable Infrastructure (2Africa).
Circling the African continent and connecting intercontinental nodes across Europe, Asia and beyond, 2Africa will further expand CMI’s global submarine cable layout and international connectivity resources, providing a robust digital infrastructure to accelerate Digital Transformation and digital economic development in Africa and surrounding regions.
As the first cable to continuously link Africa’s east and west within a single system, 2Africa adopts an open-access model. Spanning over 45,000 kilometres, it connects 33-plus countries and regions across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia, with a design capacity of 180Tbps. According to estimates, 2Africa is projected to contribute up to US$36.9 billion to Africa’s GDP within the first two to three years of operation.
Following the commissioning of key segments, CMI has optimised resource allocation along the Arabian Sea, the eastern and western coasts of Africa and Europe. It has also created synergies with high-capacity submarine cables such as PEACE and Equiano, enhancing the multi-ring network covering Africa. Leveraging global network resources in Djibouti, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and elsewhere, as well as systems such as IAX-IEX, 2Africa integrates Eurasia-Africa bandwidth with terrestrial cable and PoP extensions.
CMI is using 2Africa’s high-bandwidth, low-latency capabilities to strengthen its cloud-network services, including over 100 submarine and terrestrial cables, 380-plus PoPs and 1,270-plus data centres worldwide.
This enables global carrier customers to access high-quality international private lines, cloud private lines and interconnection services, extending into the African interior. Through the mCloud cloud-network portal, CMI offers AI+ cloud integration solutions for enterprises entering Africa and the Middle East, supporting industries such as AI+ Smart Energy Mining and AI+ Smart Park.
CMI has operated in Africa since 2015. Completion of the core 2Africa infrastructure will enrich regional network resources, delivering reliable connectivity to education, healthcare and financial services, supporting Digital Transformation and improving community livelihoods across the continent.
Looking ahead, CMI will continue leveraging submarine cable projects such as 2Africa to accelerate new information infrastructure in Africa, contributing digital and intelligent solutions to support the continent’s expanding digital economy.
