By Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal is interested in hosting a new high-capacity subsea cable to North America to improve internet connectivity between Europe and the U.S., the secretary of state for digitalisation told Reuters on Wednesday.
Subsea cables form the backbone of the world wide web, carrying 99% of global data traffic.
Two high-capacity subsea cables already link Portugal with other continents – the Google-owned Equiano cable that runs to South Africa via other African countries, and the EllaLink that runs to Brazil from Sines, south of Lisbon.
“Our aim is to improve connectivity between Europe and the U.S., implying that Sines would become yet another gateway,” Mario Campolargo said.
No formal plan has yet been tabled for the project. Portugal already has mega-investments lined up in Sines to produce renewable energy and green hydrogen to power industry and energy-intensive data centres.
U.S. investment fund Davidson Kempner and British firm Pioneer Point Partners plan to jointly invest up to 3.5 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in a large data centre there to tap demand from global tech firms.
Portugal has earmarked 3.7 billion euros of EU pandemic recovery funds for digital transition and innovation projects in other areas, hoping for high rate of return on investment thanks to the spill-over effect for the economy.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Andrei Khalip)
