Italian shipbuilding group Fincantieri and Telecom Italia's submarine cables unit Sparkle have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the development of innovative technological solutions for the surveillance and protection of submarine telecommunications cables.
Through shared work teams, Fincantieri and Sparkle said they will analyse the requirements for improving the security of undersea telecommunications infrastructure, identifying innovative technologies and solutions to ensure their operational resilience.
Sparkle owns a fibre-optic network stretching more than 600,000 kilometres across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia, of which 90 per cent is laid on submarine cables.
The agreement with Fincantieri adds to collaborations with major players in the sector, including the Italian Navy, with which Sparkle has been working since 2022 to protect its cables, and the Polo Nazionale della dimensione Subacquea (PNS), an Italian organisation which brings together government and private interests operating in the sector.
“The agreement with Sparkle marks an important step in our technological development path in the protection of critical submarine infrastructure," commented Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO and General Director of Fincantieri,
"We are ready to deploy our group's know-how to develop cutting-edge solutions that combine reliability and innovation. Thanks to this collaboration, in addition to strengthening our commitment to digital security, we concretise the development of civilian submarine alongside the military one, and project the role of Fincantieri and Italy as an industrial leader.”