In recent years, the African continent has reinforced its relationship with Europe to accelerate investments in infrastructure, driven by a shared vision for sustainable growth, resilience, and mutual beneficial cooperation. During ‘The Mattei Plan for Africa and the Global Gateway: A Common Effort with the African Continent’ Summit held in Rome in June 2025, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, reaffirmed this common goal, highlighting the importance of cooperation and Italy’s role as a bridge between the two continents.
Sparkle, Italy’s first international service provider and among the top worldwide, has a direct involvement in the continent’s digital transformation. The company has been present in Africa for decades, becoming the second largest operator by internet traffic thanks to its Tier-1 global IP backbone “Seabone”. It provides international connectivity and digital services through an extensive network running around the continent and points of presence (PoPs) in North Africa, Nigeria, South Africa, and Djibouti. The company’s Sicily Hub represents the main exchange point for internet traffic from Africa to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
In addition, proprietary fibers on Google’s Equiano submarine cable, linking South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, and Portugal, provide diversified, low-latency routes, allowing Sparkle to ensure reliable data transmission between Africa and Europe. Thanks to this infrastructure, last year, the operator was able to counteract the impact of cable outages along the continent’s western seaboards, ensuring protection and business continuity.
Sparkle’s network is constantly evolving, with new points of presence being opened and investments in large-scale projects such as the Blue & Raman Submarine Cable Systems, developed together with Google and others. The infrastructure, co-financed with EUR 37 million by the European Commission under the Global Gateway initiative, will connect Italy and India with branches in the Mediterranean, strengthening communications between Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Another ambitious initiative is the Asia-Africa-Europe-2 (AAE-2) submarine cable, in collaboration with PCCW Global, Telecom Egypt, and Zain Omantel International (ZOI). The project aims to establish a robust next-generation subsea digital link connecting Hong Kong and Singapore to Italy, traversing secure, high-capacity terrestrial corridors across Thailand, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt, with extensions to other strategic destinations. By combining terrestrial and submarine sections, AAE-2 aims to deliver a resilient, diversified, and high-performance route across Asia, Africa, and Europe, meeting the growing demand for cloud services, content delivery, and digital applications.
Sparkle’s service portfolio is equally extensive: IP transit, capacity, multicloud, networking solutions, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming, and voice are all delivered over a proprietary fiber backbone exceeding 600,000 km worldwide. This enables national and regional operators and ISPs to provide high-speed internet, cloud services, and a wide array of international solutions, seamlessly connecting Africa to the global network.
Over the past year, Sparkle has also strengthened collaborations with other major North African operators. It has reinforced its partnership with Al-Bawaba for Telecommunications and Informatics Co., a Libyan ICT provider, to deliver joint ethernet MPLS services for corporate clients in Libya via a fully redundant infrastructure combining Al-Bawaba’s national backbone and Sparkle’s international capacity. Moreover, Sparkle and Algérie Télécom signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a new submarine cable linking Italy and Algeria, strengthening digital ties between Europe and North Africa and supporting Algeria’s digital transformation.
Moreover, Sparkle has been a long-standing member of Confindustria Assafrica & Mediterraneo, the association representing over 170 companies, including SMEs, large industrial groups, banks, and institutions, supporting Italian businesses’ growth across Africa and the Middle East. The recent appointment of its CEO, Enrico Bagnasco, as President of the association testifies Sparkle’s key role in fostering bilateral relations and promoting business opportunities throughout the continent.
With cutting-edge infrastructure and a global network that integrates terrestrial and submarine routes, Sparkle continues to propel Africa’s digital development and intercontinental connectivity. From tailored services for operators and enterprises to major infrastructure projects like Blue & Raman and AAE-2, Sparkle remains a key partner in the continent’s digital transformation, keeping Africa continuously connected to the world.
