African infrastructure and telecom operator AFR-IX has secured funding from the European Commission for the development of the Medusa Africa subsea cable.
Announced last week, the company said: “AFR-IX has secured European Commission funding through the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) Programme by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) to support the expansion of the Medusa Submarine Cable System to West Africa.”
The 8,700km Medusa cable will have 17 landing points across Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Libya, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and Tunisia when launched in early 2026.
Thanks to the new funding, it is now also set to feature a branching unit to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A marine survey is now underway to deploy the future 24-fiber pair submarine cable.
The European Commission is set to provide €14.3 million ($15.6m) for the project.
Further details weren't provided, but the 2Africa and WACS cables currently both land in Muanda.
AFR-IX Barcelona is already a landing partner for the Barcelona portion of the cable, which went live in October 2022.
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Medusa is both the name of the cable and the name of the infrastructure provider behind it.
Orange Tunisie was announced as the landing partner and owner of the Tunisia branch of the Medusa cable in 2023. Medusa is said to be landing at Tunisie Orange’s cable landing station in Bizerte.
Orange will also provide the landing infrastructure for the cable’s landing in Morocco.
Medusa will also land in Egypt’s Port Said in partnership with Telecom Egypt, at which point it will then be connected to the Red Sea landing stations of Suez, Zafarana, and Ras Ghareb via Telecom Egypt's terrestrial network.
Libya’s state-owned LUIC will land the cable in Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya.
The Medusa Africa project is part of 21 initiatives selected in the third round of CEF Digital funding. This brings total funding to €420 million under the first CEF Digital Work Programme.
AFR-IX has received another €3.7 million ($4m) in funding from the CEF Digital initiative for the ATMED Malta project, set to integrate Malta into the Medusa cable system. Under the CEF program, AFR-IX is also developing the ATMED Nador-DG and ATMED East-DG cable projects.
The CEF Digital program has also helped to fund projects such as the Pisces subsea cable and the CanaLink cable.
