en.Wedoany.com Reported - Sparkle, the international operator of the Telecom Italia Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on May 14 with Jordanian digital infrastructure companies NaiTel and iLevant Ltd. to extend the GreenMed submarine cable system to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, thereby opening a new digital corridor connecting Europe and Asia via the Middle East. This agreement means Sparkle's Mediterranean connectivity matrix gains a new strategic hub node and also opens up a high-bandwidth alternative route for Europe-Asia cross-border data flows, distinct from the traditional Suez Canal path.
Under the framework of the MoU, the three parties will collaboratively advance the integration of the GreenMed submarine cable with Jordan's terrestrial fiber optic network and connect it to the regional interconnection platform of the Aqaba Digital Hub. GreenMed is a next-generation submarine cable system planned by Sparkle, designed to enhance the resilience of connectivity in the Mediterranean region and reduce over-reliance on a few critical paths. With this extension to Jordan, GreenMed will directly connect to the Aqaba Digital Hub, which is already interconnected with the Europe-Asia backbone networks via the established BlueMed and Blue & Raman submarine cable systems, and also serves as the physical landing point for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. By adding a new cable landing point in Jordan, the submarine cable access capacity of the Aqaba Hub will be further strengthened, creating richer routing options composed of three independent trans-Mediterranean systems.
Eyad Abu Khorma, Founder and CEO of the Aqaba Digital Hub, pointed out in the announcement that Jordan is located at the intersection of major global communication lines connecting Europe and Asia, and GreenMed's choice to extend to Jordan is a natural step to strengthen regional diversified and resilient digital infrastructure. Sparkle CEO Enrico Bagnasco positioned the signing as a milestone in the development of the GreenMed project, confirming the solidity of the long-term cooperation with NaiTel and iLevant, and emphasized that this extension will connect strategic digital ecosystems, fostering new development opportunities in the Mediterranean region and beyond. As an important participant in Jordan's ICT infrastructure sector, iLevant's involvement provides execution assurance for the project's localization.
The GreenMed project has received funding from the European Commission's "Connecting Europe Facility" (CEF) program. This fund is the EU's core financial instrument for promoting cross-border digital infrastructure interconnection, and GreenMed's selection indicates that the EU has prioritized the diversification of cable routes in the Mediterranean region. Previously, the EU had supported multiple submarine cable systems connecting Southern Europe and North Africa through the CEF, and GreenMed is the first trans-Mediterranean project among them to explicitly include Jordan in its landing plan.
Jordan's status in the submarine cable sector has accelerated in recent years. In August 2025, NaiTel, in cooperation with Telecom Egypt, completed and activated the "Coral Bridge" submarine cable, the first submarine cable directly connecting Egypt and Jordan in 25 years. Spanning the Gulf of Aqaba, it is 15 kilometers long, equipped with 48 fiber pairs, and supports data traffic transmission exceeding 1Pb. The launch of Coral Bridge enabled the physical interconnection of the Aqaba Hub with over ten existing cable systems in Egypt, allowing Jordan to access submarine cable networks covering Europe, Asia, and Africa through short-distance hops. As a licensed telecommunications operator in Jordan and the telecom arm of the Aqaba Digital Hub, NaiTel accumulated submarine cable construction and operational experience in the Coral Bridge project, and the introduction of GreenMed is a continuation based on this capability spillover.
The continued commitment of international financial institutions to the Aqaba Hub provides supporting backing for GreenMed's implementation. On May 11, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Union jointly announced a $14.1 million loan to the Aqaba Digital Hub, specifically for expanding its data center infrastructure, enhancing power capacity and cooling capabilities to accommodate more submarine cable landings and interconnections. This financing was announced just three days apart from the GreenMed signing, a close timing that reflects a coordinated advancement rhythm among the relevant parties, with submarine cable introduction and hub expansion being planned and constructed simultaneously.
As Italy's first international telecommunications service provider, Sparkle owns a global fiber optic network exceeding 600,000 kilometers, with its backbone covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia, and it owns or participates in over 20 submarine cable systems. Its parent company, the Telecom Italia Group, is continuously strengthening its investment in Mediterranean-direction network assets, with GreenMed considered the flagship project of the group's digital infrastructure export strategy. For Jordan, connecting to a third trans-Mediterranean cable after BlueMed and Blue & Raman can effectively diversify the risk of regional communication disruptions caused by cable cuts and also provides more ample international bandwidth supply for its domestic data center industry.
Against the backdrop of sustained high-speed growth in global data traffic, communication paths between Europe and Asia are evolving from "single-corridor dependency" to "multi-route complementarity." The concept of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor has already positioned Jordan as a key data intersection point on the eastern Mediterranean shore, and GreenMed's addition makes the physical layer puzzle of this concept more complete. With the growth of bandwidth-intensive services between Europe and Asia, such as AI training data migration, cloud computing interconnection, and real-time financial transactions, the new route via Jordan will offer cloud service providers and multinational corporations an end-to-end latency option of less than 20 milliseconds, significantly alleviating congestion on traditional paths via Suez and Marseille.
This article is compiled by Wedoany. All AI citations must indicate the source as "Wedoany". If there is any infringement or other issues, please notify us promptly, and we will modify or delete it accordingly. Email: news@wedoany.com
