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After a series of strategic partnerships and network expansions throughout 2024, EXA Infrastructure has announced a significant advancement in Europe’s digital backbone with the deployment of a new high-capacity fibre route. This 1,200 km network connects key financial and data hubs in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Brussels. It represents the first new subsea cable along the North Sea corridor in 25 years, an infrastructure milestone that aims to bolster the resilience and scalability of Europe’s connectivity options.
The route integrates 1,085 km of low-loss G.652D terrestrial fibre and a 115 km subsea segment running from Margate in the UK to Ostend in Belgium, featuring ultra-low-loss G.654C cable. Two new cable landing stations—EXA’s 21st and 22nd globally—have been established for this route, along with important upgrades to existing in-line amplifier facilities across the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands. EXA Infrastructure is uniquely positioned as the sole telecom consortium member for the submarine portion of the cable, handling Landing Party and backhaul services, underscoring its role as an essential provider in the deployment.
This expansion forms part of EXA’s broader vision to modernise and optimise fibre paths between the prominent FLAP hubs (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris), complementing earlier investments in related infrastructure such as the Channel Tunnel. According to EXA’s Chief Operating Officer, Ciaran Delaney, the project faced “complex and challenging” regulatory and environmental conditions, particularly concerning the subsea installation over difficult seabed terrain. Nevertheless, the company leveraged its extensive regional expertise and advanced technical capabilities to overcome these hurdles and deliver next-generation connectivity.
The new fibre route offers ultra-low latency, with estimated 6.2 ms latency to Amsterdam and 9.4 ms to Frankfurt, supporting bandwidth capacities exceeding 5 Petabits per second. This capacity and speed are critical for sectors requiring rapid data transmission, including financial services, gaming, and broadcasting. EXA’s network footprint extends over 155,000 km across 37 countries and includes six transatlantic cables, boasting the lowest latency transatlantic connection known as EXA Express.
In addition to this route, EXA has been active on several fronts in 2024 to strengthen Europe’s critical infrastructure. The company signed a strategic partnership with SOCAR Fiber in July to develop terrestrial fibre routes offering diversity to traditional submarine corridors such as the Red Sea route. Another partnership later that year with Macarne, an advanced network solutions provider, expanded onward connectivity through more than 500 optical Points of Presence linking major European hubs.
EXA’s prominence in the region was further heightened when it was selected by IOEMA as the landing partner for a new 1,600 km submarine cable network launched in May 2024, connecting additional North Sea countries including Denmark and Norway. This collaboration enhances backhaul connectivity to major data centres like London Telehouse and Equinix, addressing rising demands for low-latency, high-capacity digital infrastructure in Northern Europe.
This development in Europe’s digital infrastructure occurs amidst broader upgrades to UK’s energy and communication infrastructures, such as Ofgem’s recent £2 billion funding approval for subsea and underground cables supporting renewable energy projects in the North Sea, highlighting a continental trend toward strengthening both digital and energy networks.
Meanwhile, competitors like euNetworks are also investing significantly in high-capacity fibre routes, with their recently launched ‘Super Highway’ between Amsterdam and Frankfurt designed to improve network efficiency, power usage, and carbon impact by avoiding congested fibres and bottlenecks.
Taken together, these investments and deployments reflect an intensifying drive to future-proof Europe’s digital infrastructure, ensuring faster, more resilient, and scalable connectivity across key financial and technological hubs. EXA Infrastructure’s new North Sea fibre route is poised to play a critical role in this evolution, serving the growing demands of the data-driven economy while supporting the region’s ambition for global digital leadership.
EMEA’s most important subsea event returns to London on 27th – 28th May, 2026 – find out more here
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