Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, and AzerTelecom, a leading wholesale telecommunications operator of Azerbaijan, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a cooperation within the “Digital Silk Way” project that aims to create a digital telecommunication corridor between Europe and Asia through Azerbaijan.

Selected as one of the five best strategic infrastructure projects in Asia at the Global Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum in 2020, the Digital Silk Way project was initiated by NEQSOL Holding and implemented by AzerTelecom to develop information technologies and digital ecosystem in Azerbaijan and transform the country into a digital hub for the region.

Under the agreement, signed at the Capacity Middle East 2022 global telecommunications event, the parties agreed to evaluate new business opportunities and study the feasibility of jointly establishing and managing a new end-to-end transmission capacity corridor between Central Asia and Europe, also leveraging Sparkle’s existing backbone infrastructure stretching from Turkey to Italy and further on to all the main European hubs.

“In the context of an industry where cooperation among operators is key, we are particularly pleased to join the Digital Silk Way project with AzerTelecom on this new path between Europe and Asia that adds diversification - while improving performance - to the existing routes, responding to an increasingly growing need of resiliency and security in global digital communications”, said Elisabetta Romano, CEO of Sparkle.

“Digital Silk Way project opens up new opportunities for regional cooperation in the telecommunications sphere. It makes possible to create a new digital route that will be the shortest between Europe and Asia. We believe that our cooperation with Sparkle which shows a great interest to a new route will be beneficial for our companies and contribute to the acceleration of digitalization in the region”, said Fuad Allahverdiyev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AzerTelecom.