EMEA REGION

9.5.1 CURRENT SYSTEMS

Characterized by steady growth since the early 1990s, Europe, the Middle East and Africa have all seen an increase in development over recent years. This has been one of the most consistent growth regions in the world, owing to its size as well as the important “crossroads” of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.

While system count has remained steady – with an average of five systems ready for service every year since 2002 – with 2011 seeing the largest surge of 14 new systems – the actual lengths of these systems can vary. (Figure 91) The primary factor behind these growth spurts are the SEA-ME-WE systems, as well as large coastal systems ringing Africa. In actual number of systems accomplished, the EMEA region is the most consistent region in the world. It has a growth pattern that is seemingly immune to the industry’s boom and bust pattern seen over the past 15 years.

The EMEA region sees a consistent, annual addition of smaller regional systems. These complement the large, multi-region projects like SEA-ME-WE, ACE, EIG, and WACS to name a few. These large projects span multiple regions of the world, rather than smaller, inter-country routes and are the biggest projects the industry tackles. Each system of this kind comes in at well over 10,000 kilometers per route — sometimes beyond 20,000 and 25,000 kilometers. Despite the steady system count, inter-regional projects like this cause a huge surge in kilometers installed with 2010 to 2012 seeing the most recent growth spurt for the region.

9.5.2 FUTURE SYSTEMS

As mentioned previously, the EMEA region is uniquely characterized as a region of steady activity, with bursts of highly ambitious, region-spanning systems every few years.

The rate of kilometers added per year shows an average increase of 4.1 percent annually since 2012. Recent bursts of eighter percent, nine percent, and 12 percent have been observed in 2016, 2017, and 2012, respectively. However, a significant reduction in growth was seen between the years of 2018 and 2020 at a mere 0.4 percent average increase annually. (Figure 92) The EMEA region is not looking at a considerable drop-off in system activity from 2022 through to 2025, indicating that growth will remain steady for the foreseeable future.

In fact, with a renewed focus from Hyperscalers on countries like Nigeria and South Africa who are booming technologically, large systems like 2Africa from Facebook and Equiano from Google could bring about a new surge in activity to Africa as a whole. As these large Hyperscalers begin to set up hyperscale infrastructure, it will naturally attract other business and more demand for bandwidth between key data center regions like North America and Europe. Both new cable systems promise more than 140 Tbps of bandwidth and will be a huge boon to the west coast of Africa which currently has an average of about 8 Tbps per submarine cable.

There are currently twenty-three systems planned to be ready for service for the period 2022-2025. Currently, 65 percent of these systems have achieved the CIF milestone. (Figure 93) With more half of these systems being considered viable now, the initial impression is positive. Unfortunately, the EMEA region continues to be rife with economic uncertainty and political instability, casting a cloud over any prospective projects – especially in the wake of COVID-19.