Key takeaways
- EXA Infrastructure has expanded its long-haul terrestrial network with a route that directly connects Barcelona to Bilbao
- New terrestrial corridors reduce cross-Spain latency by 52%, unlocking direct Atlantic access for subsea cables landing in the Mediterranean
- The route also serves Zaragoza, one of Europe’s fastest growing hyperscale and AI data centre hubs
- EXA connects the main eight data centres across Catalonia, making Barcelona a critical aggregation point for Mediterranean subsea cables
- Steve Roberts, SVP, Strategic Investments and Product Management, says customers get a shorter and more resilient path to transatlantic systems
New terrestrial corridors reduce cross-Spain latency by 52%, unlocking direct Atlantic access for subsea cables landing in the Mediterranean
A new Barcelona to Bilbao corridor
EXA Infrastructure, owner and operator of the largest dedicated digital infrastructure network across Europe and the Atlantic today announced the expansion of its long-haul terrestrial network with a route that directly connects Barcelona to Bilbao creating a new corridor that serves Transatlantic to Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa and Asia traffic flows. The development marks a pivotal evolution for the Barcelona hub, repositioning it from a predominantly Mediterranean exchange point into a true east-west gateway with seamless access to Atlantic and transatlantic cable systems.
Serving the Zaragoza data centre region
Critically, the route also serves the burgeoning Zaragoza region, placing new datacentre resources at the nexus of Lisbon and Madrid traffic flows to the rest of Europe — and now transatlantic traffic to Mediterranean-facing locations. Zaragoza has emerged as one of Europe's fastest growing hyperscale and AI data centre hubs. Anchored by major investments from AWS, Microsoft and QTS, the Aragón region is on track to become one of the continent's largest data centre markets, with more than 1.6GW of projected capacity by 2030*.
Zaragoza in numbers
- Anchored by major investments from AWS, Microsoft and QTS
- More than 1.6GW of projected capacity by 2030 in the Aragón region
- At the nexus of Lisbon and Madrid traffic flows to the rest of Europe
Barcelona as a transatlantic gateway
EXA Infrastructure connects the main eight data centres across Catalonia, and the unique combination of owned fibre infrastructure and embedded DC presence has long made Barcelona a critical aggregation point for subsea cables in the Mediterranean. With the addition of the new long-haul terrestrial route, EXA's end-to-end platform now creates an unbroken, high-performance path that brings those cables measurably closer to North America.
For hyperscalers, content providers and AI platform operators relying on subsea cable capacity arriving from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, this development means that Barcelona is no longer simply a landing and aggregation point: it is now a direct route to the transatlantic ecosystem. Traffic that previously had limited routing options across Spain can now traverse multiple distinct paths, reduce single points of failure and improve overall network resilience.
Comment from Steve Roberts
“Barcelona has always been a natural meeting point between East and West,” said Steve Roberts, SVP, Strategic Investments and Product Management at EXA Infrastructure. “By extending our terrestrial long-haul footprint directly to the Atlantic corridor, we are giving our customers, and the subsea players that already land there, a genuinely shorter and more resilient path to transatlantic systems.”
*Source: fDi Intelligence – Your source for foreign direct investment information - fDiIntelligence.com
