Deal adds multiple Atlantic cable systems and follows a series of fibre investments aimed at strengthening route diversity and capacity across Europe
EXA Infrastructure has completed its acquisition of Ireland-based subsea operator Aqua Comms, adding several transatlantic and regional submarine cable systems to its network as the operator continues to expand its position in wholesale and hyperscale connectivity markets.
The deal was first announced just under a year ago for a knockdown price of $54m. The transaction brings Aqua Comms’ portfolio of submarine assets under EXA Infrastructure’s ownership, including America Europe Connect-1 and -2 (AEC-1 and AEC-2), CeltixConnect-1 and -2 (CC-1 and CC-2), and a stake in the Amitié system, also known as AEC-3. The combined network strengthens connectivity between the US, Ireland and mainland Europe, increasing route diversity for carriers, cloud providers and other wholesale customers, according to the operator.
EXA, a London-based portfolio company of I Squared Capital, operates more than 160,000 km of digital infrastructure across 37 countries. Prior to the acquisition, its footprint included seven transatlantic routes and 22 cable landing stations across Europe and North America.
“With the acquisition now complete, EXA Infrastructure has significantly enhanced our Transatlantic and European connectivity offerings,” said EXA Infrastructure chief executive officer Jim Fagan. “Customers will benefit from unrivalled route diversity [and] enhanced resiliency across a unified, meshed subsea and terrestrial network.”
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed this time round. Akur Capital and RBC Capital Markets acted as financial advisers to EXA Infrastructure, with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison advising on legal aspects of the deal. Goldman Sachs advised seller D9 Infrastructure, alongside legal adviser Shoosmiths.
Building networks
The Aqua Comms acquisition follows a period of sustained investment by EXA Infrastructure in its terrestrial European network, aimed at addressing long-standing capacity constraints and improving resilience on key routes. In October 2025, the company announced a major upgrade of the Paris–Marseille corridor, a critical path for traffic flowing from southern Europe and North Africa to central and northern Europe. The investment included an increase in fibre count on the existing route and the deployment of a new geographically diverse Paris–Dijon–Marseille path, intended to provide alternative routing and improved fault tolerance.
That project built on earlier work in 2024, when EXA claimed to be the first operator to deploy new low-loss G.652D fibre on the Paris–Marseille route. According to the operator, rising demand for access to subsea landing points in Marseille was a key driver for expanding capacity on the corridor.
Separately, in September 2025 EXA unveiled Project Visegrád, a large-scale backbone fibre deployment across Central Europe. The project will introduce new international routes linking Warsaw, Poznań, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest to EXA’s existing backbone nodes in Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna, alongside metro fibre expansions in several cities. The first routes are expected to be ready for service in mid-2026, with further build-out continuing into 2027.
Taken together, the Aqua Comms acquisition and recent terrestrial investments point to a strategy focused on tighter integration between subsea and land-based infrastructure. This approach is intended to provide greater flexibility in routing traffic between North America and multiple European hubs, while reducing reliance on single corridors or landing points – at least in theory.
