Africa’s Research and Education Networks achieve historic Lagos-Cape Town Interconnection

Enabled by WACREN, SANReN, and TENET, the link creates the first-ever inter-RREN connection on African soil.

The African research and education landscape has taken a historic leap forward. WACREN (the West and Central African Research and Education Network) is now directly interconnected with the Eastern and Southern African research and education community at the ZAOXI Global Exchange Point (GXP) in Cape Town, through SANReN (the South African Research and Education Network) and TENET (the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa).

This breakthrough creates the first-ever interconnection between Africa’s regional research and education networks (RRENs) on African soil. It comes as WACREN also extends its backbone to six new countries: The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Senegal.

The achievement was made possible through WACREN’s establishment of the Lagos GXP, the second GXP on the continent, and its interconnection with ZAOXI — the first African GXP — in Cape Town. The initiative also builds on the AfricaConnect programme, co-funded by the European Union and African partners, which has provided vital support for establishing and strengthening the continent’s research and education networks.

Until now, most African research and education traffic between the regions was routed through Europe, adding cost, latency, and dependence on international infrastructure. The new 10 Gbps high-capacity link between Lagos and Cape Town changes that reality. It enables African researchers, educators, and innovators to collaborate with greater speed, reliability, and affordability across borders and disciplines.

“The connection through ZAOXI represents more than just infrastructure; it represents Africa claiming its rightful place in the global digital research fabric. By strengthening interconnections across the continent, we empower our universities, research centres, and innovators to drive solutions to Africa’s grand challenges in health, climate, agriculture, and education — with Africa’s data flowing through African pathways.”
 — Dr. Eyouleki T.G. Palanga, CEO of WACREN

For universities and research centres, this interconnection means access to faster, more resilient networks for data-intensive science. Climate researchers can now integrate real-time weather, IoT, and satellite data across borders. Universities can expand their e-learning platforms with reduced latency. Health researchers can exchange and analyse large datasets more efficiently. And African innovators can collaborate seamlessly with peers across the continent and globally through the Lagos and ZAOXI GXPs, which connect to Internet2 (USA), CANARIE (Canada), RedCLARA (Latin America), CSTNET (China), ANSP (Brazil), and GÉANT (Europe).

In parallel, WACREN is preparing to build a federated high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure across several connected countries. Building on its GPU-enabled cloud upgrade completed in 2024, this initiative will interconnect national HPC systems to provide shared computational capacity for advanced research. From basin-wide water and energy modelling to large-scale climate simulations, the federated infrastructure will allow African researchers to collaborate across borders on data-intensive challenges that no single institution could tackle alone.

“South Africa’s national research and education infrastructure has long invested in advanced computing and connectivity to serve our research community. By linking SANReN’s high-speed backbone and HPC resources with WACREN through the ZAOXI exchange, we are helping to create an environment where African researchers can collaborate at scale — from climate modelling to early warning systems. This interconnection lays the foundation for African-led science that addresses our most urgent challenges.”
 — Sabelo Dhlamini, Director of SANReN

While SANReN and TENET were central to enabling the Lagos–Cape Town link, the interconnection also strengthens the role of the UbuntuNet Alliance (the Eastern and Southern African Research and Education Network), of which SANReN is a member. By linking West and Central Africa with the Eastern and Southern region at ZAOXI, this milestone extends the reach of both RRENs and provides the foundation for a pan-African digital research fabric that is both regional and global in scope.

About WACREN

The West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN) develops advanced digital infrastructure and services to support education and research communities across the region. By connecting universities, research institutes, and national RENs to each other and the world, WACREN empowers African researchers, educators, and students to thrive in the global knowledge society.
Media Contact: media@wacren.net

About SANReN

The South African Research and Education Network (SANReN) is a national initiative hosted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It designs, builds, and operates high-performance network infrastructure to meet the needs of South Africa’s research and education community and to connect the country to regional and global research networks.

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