SAEx, a long-running project by a team of South Africans to build a submarine broadband cable system, has a renewed lease on life.

TechCentral has learnt exclusively that the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has approved project development capital to complete a “definitive” feasibility study for the SAEx East Subsea Fibre-Optic Cable Project, which will connect South Africa with Singapore in Southeast Asia.

The project, which has been in development in various guises for more than a decade, may finally be moving ahead, with financial close on fundraising expected in the second half of the year.

The IDC and SAEx International Management Limited (SIML) will be co-sponsors of the SAEx East project – the first phase of an envisaged cable system that will eventually also deliver a route from South Africa to the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean. When completed, the entire cable system will be known as the SAEx Southern Oceans Network, or SAEx SON.

“The network will connect four continents along a unique but resilient southern hemispheric all-wet routing that connects South Africa to Asia via Singapore,” SAEx said in a statement shared with TechCentral.

“It will have branching units to several Indian Ocean islands and other strategic markets, including the prospect of a branch to India along the route. Through the SAEx West system, the second phase of the project, the network will connect South Africa to South America, North America and potentially West Africa.

Deep-ocean path

SAEx project director and SIML MD Rosalind Thomas said: “SAEx East is an additional undersea cable route removing dependency on the traditional Red Sea route or the proposed terrestrial routes to Europe.

“Additionally, it is a more cost-effective all-wet, deep-ocean path for volume traffic needing a secure, efficient and neutral route to either the Americas or Asia. It will provide a resilient, efficient service that is competitive and equivalent in latency (network roundtrip times), with far fewer hops compared to existing and proposed east-west routes between Asia, the Americas and Europe. The system will establish South Africa as a neutral global hub at the centre of a planned global network.”

Read: Google to build South Africa to Australia subsea cable called Umoja

Thomas said landing stations for SAEx will be in Amanzimtoti in KwaZulu-Natal for traffic into South Africa and the rest of Africa; East London for Eastern Cape traffic; Melkbosstrand (for the Western Cape and the main endpoint of the system as well as the interconnection location for SAEx West, when it is built).

The core landing in the east is in Singapore, with a secondary landing in Malaysia, a core landing in Mauritius and a secondary landing planned for Reunion – and with stubbed branching units for India and Thailand.

Thomas declined to say how much SAEx East will cost to build, citing confidentiality for “business reasons”.

The IDC funding is meant to take the project to financial close, she said. “At close, the IDC will invest significantly more in equity to achieve a 25% equity stake in the project special purpose vehicle and potentially provide some debt,” Thomas said.

Submarine surveys for the South Africa to Singapore route will be done under a turnkey contract following the anticipated financial close later this year.

Rian Coetzee, acting division executive of industry and project development at the IDC, said the project will enhance South Africa’s global standing and connectivity ranking. “After due consideration, the corporation decided to join SIML as a co-sponsor of the SAEx East phase and provide development funding to bring the project to financial close.”

Read: Bandwidth bonanza: the undersea cables that connect South Africa to the world

“The SAEx East project is expected to reach financial close in the second half of 2025 following four intensive years of project preparation and the full support of its strategic partners, where landing party agreements are under finalisation along the cable’s core routing,” the SAEx statement said.

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