TM Nxera – the JV comprising Telekom Malaysia and Singaporean data centre operator Nxera – completed construction of its first hyperscale AI-ready data centre in Johor on Friday.

The Tier-III data centre, located in Iskandar Puteri in Johor, will initially support 64MW of capacity, and is designed to scale up to 200MW as demand increases, supporting large computing and AI capabilities required by customers such as cloud hyperscalers and GPU-as-a-Service providers.

TM Nxera said in a LinkedIn post that its topping out ceremony “marks a significant milestone, reflecting the progress, effort, and dedication that have brought us to this stage.”

The company said it’s also looking forward to making the facility ready for service, although it didn’t provide a specific target date. TM Nxera has previously said the facility would start commercial operations sometime this year.

The data centre has been in the works since June 2024, when TM and Nxera announced they were forming a JV to develop data centres in Malaysia.

In January, TM Nxera signed a multi-year agreement with Tenaga Nasional (TNB) to supply 280MW of power for the data centre.

Nxera CEO Bill Chang said in a separate LinkedIn post on Friday that he was “really happy to see the rapid, smooth and safe progress of the buildout of this large scale AI DC specially designed to host some of the most demanding AI workloads in the industry.”

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Nigeria’s push to expand its digital infrastructure has gained fresh momentum after the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved a $200 million loan for Project BRIDGE, a major fibre-optic programme aimed at widening broadband access and strengthening the country’s digital economy.

The initiative, formally known as the Digital Value Chain Infrastructure for Boosting Employment (D-VIBE) project, is part of a wider effort to mobilise about $2 billion for broadband expansion across the country, according to the AfDB.

The plan is ambitious: officials want to lift Nigeria’s national fibre backbone from roughly 30,000 kilometres to 120,000 kilometres, with open-access infrastructure reaching all 774 local government areas.

According to the AfDB and reports in Premium Times, the network is also intended to support cross-border links with Benin, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad, while extending service to schools, health facilities, rural communities, agro-industrial zones, and commercial centres.

“Nigeria has the talent, the market, and the ambition; what it has lacked is the backbone infrastructure to connect that potential to opportunity. D-VIBE changes that. From the north to the south, from farms to factories to classrooms, this investment will make high-speed connectivity a reality for every Nigerian community and give young people the tools to build their futures digitally,” said Abdul Kamara, Director General, African Development Bank Group Nigeria Office.

Funding for the project is being assembled from multiple sources. In addition to the AfDB loan, reports suggest the package includes $500 million from the World Bank, $100 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, an $1.2 billion from the private sector.

Execution remains the critical test for the project. Fibre rollout in Nigeria has repeatedly been slowed by right-of-way costs, fragmented policy, and coordination problems, making delivery as much a governance challenge as a financing one.

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News

Nigeria’s push to expand its digital infrastructure has gained fresh momentum after the African Development Bank (AfDB) approved a $200 million loan for Project BRIDGE, a major fibre-optic programme aimed at widening broadband access and strengthening the country’s digital economy.

The initiative, formally known as the Digital Value Chain Infrastructure for Boosting Employment (D-VIBE) project, is part of a wider effort to mobilise about $2 billion for broadband expansion across the country, according to the AfDB.

The plan is ambitious: officials want to lift Nigeria’s national fibre backbone from roughly 30,000 kilometres to 120,000 kilometres, with open-access infrastructure reaching all 774 local government areas.

According to the AfDB and reports in Premium Times, the network is also intended to support cross-border links with Benin, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad, while extending service to schools, health facilities, rural communities, agro-industrial zones, and commercial centres.

“Nigeria has the talent, the market, and the ambition; what it has lacked is the backbone infrastructure to connect that potential to opportunity. D-VIBE changes that. From the north to the south, from farms to factories to classrooms, this investment will make high-speed connectivity a reality for every Nigerian community and give young people the tools to build their futures digitally,” said Abdul Kamara, Director General, African Development Bank Group Nigeria Office.

Funding for the project is being assembled from multiple sources. In addition to the AfDB loan, reports suggest the package includes $500 million from the World Bank, $100 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, an $1.2 billion from the private sector.

Execution remains the critical test for the project. Fibre rollout in Nigeria has repeatedly been slowed by right-of-way costs, fragmented policy, and coordination problems, making delivery as much a governance challenge as a financing one.

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Operator Telecom Namibia and regulator the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) have officially entered into a strategic partnership.

Described as a  milestone event, the partnership marks the commencement of Phase 2 of the Universal Service Fund (USF) project, a critical initiative designed to bridge the digital divide in Namibia’s underserved rural areas.

The agreement followed a successful bidding process in which Telecom Namibia was awarded a subsidy of N$9,796,650 (just under US$600,000). These funds are dedicated to the deployment of vital telecommunications infrastructure across key sites, ensuring that remote communities gain access to reliable and high-quality communication services.

Under the terms of the signed agreement, Telecom Namibia will facilitate the construction of new radio access network (RAN) sites, engineered to significantly improve mobile broadband and voice services.

A central component of this partnership is a commitment to provide free connectivity to all educational and health facilities within the coverage of these RAN sites for a period of seven years, directly supporting socioeconomic development. The infrastructure deployment will target underserved areas in at least eight regions. 

Mrs Emilia Nghikembua, CEO of CRAN, says: “The Universal Service Fund is a cornerstone of our strategy to ensure inclusive communication services. Through a transparent and rigorous selection process, we have partnered with Telecom Namibia to accelerate our 2024–2027 digital infrastructure goals. We are confident that this phase will have a lasting, positive impact on the lives of those in the most remote regions of our country.”

Social media platform TikTok and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the institutional representative of more than 45 million companies in over 170 countries, have announced the launch of the Digital Commerce Labs programme.

This is described as a global programme designed to unlock digital commerce opportunities for small businesses in select markets across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

As TikTok points out, businesses of all sizes use the platform to reach new customers and build their brands. The initiative will leverage TikTok’s suite of digital commerce tools and reach with ICC’s expertise on international trade, powerful network of national committees and chambers of commerce to expand access to training, mentorship and digital resources.

Through this partnership, TikTok and ICC say they will equip small businesses with digital skills and tools to increase revenue opportunities, expand market access and build long-term resilience.

They add that by connecting global expertise with local business communities, the Digital Commerce Labs will create a scalable education model that can be replicated across markets to help entrepreneurs translate digital knowledge into real-world growth opportunities.

The programme is designed to build long-term digital commerce ecosystems by working in close collaboration with national chambers and local organisations. The programme will deliver learning and economic impact through three integrated components: community building – bringing small businesses together through virtual and in-person sessions with relevant local ecosystem partners; self-led online training modules hosted on a dedicated learning platform; and virtual classrooms providing instructor-led learning opportunities where entrepreneurs can engage directly with industry experts.

The Digital Commerce Labs programme is expected to launch across ten countries, supporting entrepreneurs through community programming, digital learning resources and virtual training sessions.

The programme will launch in select markets across Latin America and Africa this spring, followed by a broader expansion across Africa and to Thailand later this year.

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Tony Thakur, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Great Plains Communications (GPC)

Across the Midwest, in emerging growth corridors and across the nation, we’ve seen a recurring pattern: organizations believe they are protected because they have redundant connectivity until an outage proves otherwise. The issue is rarely bandwidth. It is about overall network resiliency and a strategy to mitigate during an outage. … [visit site to read more]

State-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cables (BSCPLC) has warned that internet services will experience slowdowns or disruptions from now until Monday due to repairs being carried out on the SEA-ME-WE-5 subsea cable.

In a statement released on Wednesday, BSCPLC said that the SEA-ME-WE-5 consortium would conduct fault repair maintenance on the cable’s S1.5.1 shunt from Thursday evening (April 9) local time to the morning of April 13.

During that time, the repair work will impact circuits routed between Singapore and SEA-ME-WE 5’s landing station in Kuakata, which may result in slower internet speeds or partial service interruptions, BSCPLC said.

BSCPLC added that service on Bangladesh’s other international subsea cable route, SEA-ME-WE-4, will continue as normal.

However, SEA-ME-WE-4 provides only a third of Bangladesh’s international subsea cable capacity at around 800 Gbps, compared to roughly 1.7 Tbps on SEA-ME-WE 5. A break on the same route in 2024 heavily impacted internet services in the country, highlighting the need for Bangladesh to install more international capacity.

BSCPLC – which is a stakeholder in both subsea cables – is also a member of the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable consortium, but that system’s ready-for-service date has been pushed back to 2027.

The Bangladesh Private Cable System (BPCS) consortium announced plans in September 2024 to construct a privately-owned 1,300-km subsea cable connecting Cox’s Bazar to the Campana-owned UMO subsea cable that runs from Myanmar to Singapore, giving the country another 45 Tbps of capacity.

In December last year, BPCS contracted Nokia to supply submarine line terminal equipment for the project, which is tentatively slated to be ready for service in the second half of this year.

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The submarines are thought to be mapping the UK’s undersea communications networks.

The UK’s defence secretary John Healey has today revealed to reporters that a trio of Russian submarines have been monitored in UK waters, likely monitoring the country’s subsea cables and pipelines.

British armed forces, including a naval ship and a Royal Air Force plane, were quickly deployed to track and deter the submarines, which subsequently left the area.

There are no reports of submarine infrastructure having been damaged.

“To Putin, I say this: we see you, we see your activity over our underwater infrastructure. You should know that any attempt to damage it will not be tolerated and would have serious consequences,” said Healy.

The incident involved three submarines, a Russian Akula-class attack submarine and two spy submarines belonging to Russia’s Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research (GUGI). These GUGI submarines are designed to monitor and map submarine cable infrastructure and could be used to sabotage these underwater systems.

“These aren’t standard submarines, they’re specialist vessels designed for deep sea operations,” Charlotte Wilson, Head of Enterprise at Check Point Cybersecurity, told the BBC. “So, this isn’t random movement, it suggests a deliberate effort to understand where critical infrastructure sits and how it behaves. Not only mapping locations but also assessing how resilient those systems are.”

GUGI has often been linked to covert submarine cable surveillance in UK waters, most recently in 2025 when its ‘spy ship’, Yantar, was accused of entering British waters to map subsea infrastructure.

A notable incident occurred in January 2025, when a UK submarine surfaced beside the Yantar in a show of strength, with Healy subsequently saying, “we know what you’re doing and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country”.

Over a year later, however, and Russia is seemingly undeterred. Healy notes “increased Russian activity” in the Atlantic north of the UK, with a 30% increase in Russian vessels threatening UK waters.

How is the submarine cable security landscape changing? Join our inaugural Subsea Security Summit in May 2026

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