Bharti Airtel on Monday said it has joined the ‘SEA-ME-WE-6’ undersea cable consortium in a bid to scale up its high-speed global network capacity to serve India’s fast-growing digital economy. Airtel said it is participating as a “major investor” in the SEA-ME-WE-6 and is anchoring 20 per cent of the overall investment in the cable system, which will go live in 2025.

The 12 other consortium members of SEA-ME-WE-6 include Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company, Dhiraagu (Maldives), Djibouti Telecom, Mobily (Saudi Arabia), Orange (France), Singtel (Singapore), Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, and Telin (Indonesia).The 19,200 Rkm (route kilometres) SEA-ME-WE-6 will connect Singapore and France, and will be among the largest undersea cable system globally.

In a statement, Airtel said it has joined SEA-ME-WE-6 undersea cable consortium to scale up the high-speed network for India’s emerging digital economy. “Through SEA-ME-WE-6, Airtel will add a significant amount of 100 TBps capacity to its global network,” the statement said.Airtel has acquired one Fiber Pair on the main SEA-ME-WE-6 system and will co-build four Fiber Pairs between Singapore – Chennai – Mumbai as part of the cable system. Airtel will land the SEA-ME-WE-6 cable system in India at new landing stations in Mumbai and Chennai.

According to the statement, SEA-ME-WE-6 will be integrated with Nxtra by Airtel’s large data centres in Mumbai and Chennai to enable global hyperscalers and businesses to access integrated solutions and strengthen India’s position as an emerging data centre hub in the region.Airtel Business Director and CEO Ajay Chitkara said: “Undersea cable systems along with data centres are vital infrastructure for supporting 5G and the digital economy… Our investment in SEA-ME-WE-6 is another step in our journey to future-proof our network and build large integrated capacities to enable India’s digital ecosystem.” Airtel said it already operates the largest undersea cable network out of India in addition to the biggest network of data centres.

Airtel global network spans over 365,000 Rkms and reaches 50 countries across five continents. Nxtra by Airtel, the data centre unit of Airtel, operates the largest network of data centres in India with 11 large and 120 edge data centres.