Meta has officially completed the core infrastructure of 2Africa, the subsea cable system it has long described as the world’s largest open-access network and for once, the hype matches the scale.
After nearly six years of engineering work, the company says this milestone marks a “defining moment” for Africa’s digital future and one of the biggest connectivity upgrades the continent has ever seen.
This update comes just two months after Meta revealed that the system was on track to begin going live from September 2025, starting with London, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.
Backed by a heavyweight consortium including MTN GlobalConnect, Vodafone/Vodacom, Orange, and China Mobile International, the cable spans an astonishing 45,000 km, linking Europe, the Middle East, and 16 African countries, with 46 global landing points. When fully operational, 2Africa will reportedly deliver more capacity than all existing subsea cables serving Africa combined, hitting up to 180 Tbps on key routes.
Reinventing the Limits of Subsea Engineering
To reach this scale, Meta’s infrastructure team had to push subsea innovation far beyond current standards. Key advancements include:
- Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM) that doubles fibre capacity,
- Undersea wavelength switching for more flexible bandwidth allocation, and
- A massive deployment operation involving 35 offshore vessels, the equivalent of 32 years of combined work.
In remote and difficult coastal areas, engineers shipped in specialised diving and burial machines just to pull the cable ashore.
Billions in New Value
Beyond the engineering spectacle, the economic upside is staggering. According to RTI International, 2Africa could contribute as much as $36.9 billion to Africa’s GDP within two to three years of going live. Meta expects the cable to catalyse job creation, boost digital productivity, and give African startups the high-capacity infrastructure they’ve never had at scale.
For African operators like MTN, the project signals what’s possible when global tech giants and local infrastructure players build together. As MTN’s digital infrastructure chief put it, 2Africa isn’t just connecting Africa to the world; it’s connecting the continent to its own potential.
Read Also: https://techsudor.com/cloudflare-issues-apology-after-global-outage-reveals-root-cause/
