28 July 2021

EU Brazil Conference on digital economy and innovation

Philippe Dumont, EllaLink’s CEO, recently attended the 2nd EU-Brazil conference on digital economy and innovation, an event focused on the most important issues concerning the European Union (EU) and Brazil. On this privileged stage, different authorities from different continents discussed how to execute strategic projects together, and in particular how the EllaLink platform can help to implement them successfully.

The EllaLink network presents a major opportunity for Europe and Latin America to showcase their connection, strength, and joint evolution by working together. As the Minister Counsellor for Digital Market, Delegation of the European Union to Brazil, said during the conference, “This a good opportunity to also address my compliment to Phillipe Dumont at EllaLink that somehow responded to the challenge from the EU and Brazil of providing to both regions a 21th century infrastructure”.

Competitive advantage: Impact of digitalization

This project is more than just a submarine cable system, it will also benefit the research and education communities on both continents, reaching up to 70 million people including researchers and students, who will in all likelihood use the cable daily to work and communicate.

Many links between US and Europe are in existence but offering a direct connection between the EU and Latin America is the unique feature of EllaLink: providing diverse infrastructure that connects Europe and Latin America, through Portugal and Brazil.  Felipe Batista, Permanent Representation of Portugal to the EU, noted, “It is without a doubt a much more important relationship with Latin America, and the pinnacle of this relationship is EllaLink cable and a great opportunity in terms of digitalisation”. 

Economically and digitally, this is a great opportunity for Europe and Latin America, especially with the EU becoming the center of data transmission over the next 10 years, this innovation requires a stable connectivity.

Phillipe Dumont said, “For us, this 2nd EU-Brazil Conference was a great opportunity to talk about our cable and how such an infrastructure is built. The cable is a physical structure starting in Sines, Portugal, and finishing in Fortaleza, Brazil. With the support of partner companies like Equinix and Interxion, the EllaLink cable system will be connecting users in Lisbon, Madrid, Marseille, in Europa, with Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in Brazil. 

It took 8 years to develop the EllaLink project and about 2 years to build the cable and to create this first route in the world connecting the EU and Brazil directly. Usually, the route taken is through the US, nowadays if you are in Brazil your information goes to the US and follow a route like: Brazil to Atlanta to Madrid. The subsea cable is around 6,000km long and landing in Fortaleza is not meaningless, Fortaleza is a already digital jewel for Brazil. With 13 cable landing there it makes it a top 5 of the digital hub in the world. Europe has been very important financially, the first sponsor was the Bella consortium, without their trust the infrastructure would have never existed.”

Adding, “Another important topic for this new route is the reduced latency it offers. Latency is measured in milliseconds and can be defined as the time a message takes to cross the network and return (Round Tryp Delay or RTD).  Fortaleza is closer to Sines than it is to Miami. With the EllaLink cable there is an exponential increase for new opportunities for business both in Latin America and Europe as these continents are now directly connected. Even for communicating and exchanging data to Asia the shortest way is now through Europe via Marseille, not the US via the Pacific.

For EllaLink one important factor is that the cable is not only for business purposes. The connection also closes the gap for cultural and scientific affairs, and this is really unique.” 

Learn more about the EllaLink cable system in the video of the Inauguration event in Sines.

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