EXA Infrastructure has made a significant move by agreeing to acquire Aqua Comms, a specialist in transatlantic and intra-European subsea infrastructure.
Founded in 2014, Aqua Comms is based in Ireland and has positioned itself as a leader in high-capacity data services. The company focuses on creating secure, scalable, and resilient networks that connect global carriers, cloud providers, and data centers, all vital to driving the digital economy. They operate submarine cable systems and provide fiber pairs, spectrum, and wholesale network capacity for markets including content, cloud, and enterprise.
Aqua Comms owns and operates several key cable systems, including America Europe Connect-1 and -2, along with CeltixConnect-1 and -2. They are also part of a consortium managing the Amitié cable system.
Meanwhile, EXA Infrastructure, based in London and backed by I Squared Capital, has a vast network of over 150,000 kilometers across 37 countries. This includes 20 cable landing stations that enable global businesses to tap into ultra-low latency, high-bandwidth networks essential for financial, gaming, and broadcasting services. Their EXA Express service claims the fastest connection between Europe and North America, and more than 65,000 kilometers of their network supports 400G technology, ensuring that they can keep up with the increasing demands across continents.
Jim Fagan, the CEO of EXA Infrastructure, highlighted that this acquisition shows their commitment to creating a comprehensive transatlantic platform to meet current and future demands in AI, cloud, and content. He emphasized that combining efforts with Aqua Comms will create more routing options, greater capacity, and enhanced diversity for customers.
This acquisition follows a series of partnerships and expansions in EXA’s transatlantic routes throughout 2024. By the end of the year, they also plan to launch a managed fiber network service aimed at addressing the need for faster connectivity and service delivery. This new offering targets advancements in AI, cloud computing, content delivery, and big data, which require networks to scale rapidly. It promises the benefits of dark fiber and equipment ownership, delivering high scalability without the usual administrative and operational costs associated with in-house management.