Exceeding 400 Terabits per second in design capacity, the CaspiLink subsea system now forms the digital backbone of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, commonly known as the Middle Corridor. The national telecom operators of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan created a dedicated operating entity, CaspiLink B.V., to build, own, and operate the underwater infrastructure. By combining full operator financing with an EU-based corporate structure and a diversified vendor supply chain, the project delivers a digital passage between East Asia and Europe that avoids both Russian territory and the Red Sea.

Corporate Structure and Governance

CaspiLink B.V. Profile

  • Incorporated August 17, 2023, in Amsterdam, Netherlands (KvK No. 91144000)
  • 50/50 joint venture between Kazakhtelecom JSC and AzerTelecom International, the wholesale infrastructure division of NEQSOL Holding
  • Chief Executive Officer: Ana Nakashidze, who also leads AzerTelecom
  • Operates as a carrier-neutral wholesale provider offering dark fiber, Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRUs), clear-channel spectrum, and unified cross-border Service Level Agreements

Why an EU Operating Entity for a Caspian Asset

Although the physical cable lies entirely beneath the Caspian Sea between two non-EU nations, the decision to establish the operating company in Amsterdam served multiple strategic purposes. Incorporating outside both parent nations' territories eliminated domestic regulatory favoritism and anchored governance in Dutch commercial law and the Netherlands Commercial Court.

Contractual Enforceability and Enterprise Bankability

The primary market consists of global hyperscalers—Meta, Google, Microsoft, AWS—and European Tier-1 carriers negotiating long-term IRU contracts spanning 15 to 25 years. These Western enterprises require agreements governed by EU commercial law, enforceable through international arbitration, and fully compliant with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ESG frameworks.

Currency and Capital Flows

An Amsterdam-based operating vehicle enables capacity leasing and maintenance fees to settle directly in EUR and USD, insulating the project from volatility in the Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) and Azerbaijani manat (AZN), as well as from local currency surrender mandates and capital repatriation restrictions.

Sanctions Isolation

The Caspian Sea borders the Russian Federation to the north and the Islamic Republic of Iran to the south, both heavily sanctioned jurisdictions. Placing the operating entity under Dutch regulatory supervision and EU financial intelligence oversight assures international customers that capacity payments remain outside sanctioned regional entities and state budgets.

Investment Treaty Protection

The Netherlands maintains comprehensive Bilateral Investment Treaties with both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Structuring asset ownership through CaspiLink B.V. grants the joint-venture partners recourse to Investor-State Dispute Settlement under ICSID or UNCITRAL arbitration, protecting the multi-million-dollar physical asset against arbitrary regulatory seizure, unilateral transit blockades, or discriminatory tariffs.

Tax Efficiency

The Dutch participation exemption (deelnemingsvrijstelling) and the Netherlands' extensive double-taxation treaty network prevent double taxation on cross-border capacity sales and dividend distributions between the Central Asian and South Caucasus parent companies.

Technical Deployment and Supply Chain

Laying subsea optical fiber in the Caspian—a landlocked, shallow, and environmentally sensitive body of water—required specialized maritime logistics and a multi-vendor approach. CaspiLink represents the first international public telecommunications subsea cable ever deployed in the Caspian Sea. While the seabed has long hosted oil and gas pipelines such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Shah Deniz systems, plus short platform-to-shore umbilical connections, no subsea telecom link had previously crossed the basin.

A secondary southern route connecting Sumgayit, Azerbaijan, to Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan—approximately 300 kilometers—was formally agreed in a 2019 intergovernmental accord. That project remains in prolonged planning phases due to regional administrative delays and absent commercial financing, leaving CaspiLink as the only active subsea telecom link spanning the Caspian.

Financing Model

100% Self-Funded

Unlike Western European subsea cable projects that draw heavily on multilateral grants, the Trans-Caspian system received no direct capital grants from Kazakhstani or Azerbaijani state budgets and no direct EU infrastructure subsidies for manufacturing or laying the wet plant. This self-funded approach accelerated deployment by bypassing the lengthy approval cycles of Development Finance Institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) or European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), allowing the consortium to complete the offshore cable lay in approximately two years.

Relationship to EU Funding Instruments

CaspiLink did not access direct EU capital, yet it aligns with European connectivity strategy. The EU's primary subsea grant program, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-Digital), which awarded €48.4 million to projects such as PISCES, is statutorily restricted to EU Member States and directly associated corridors. As infrastructure between two non-EU nations, CaspiLink fell outside CEF's legal scope.

The European Commission recognizes the Trans-Caspian digital corridor as central to its Global Gateway strategy. The EU has deployed technical assistance packages, including a €30 million envelope under NDICI-Global Europe, to support digital integration, border coordination, and standards harmonization along the broader Middle Corridor. This support amplifies CaspiLink's strategic value when paired with the EU-backed Black Sea Submarine Cable, which links Georgia and Azerbaijan to Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. The Black Sea cable qualifies for CEF co-financing and is designed to receive traffic exiting Sumgayit via Georgia, routing it under the Black Sea directly into the EU single market without transiting Russian territory.

Geopolitical Realignment

Circumventing Russian Transit Routes

Historically, overland connectivity between East Asia and Western Europe relied heavily on terrestrial networks crossing the Russian Federation, such as the Transit-Europe-Asia (TEA) route. Geopolitical conflict, Western sanctions, and insurance restrictions rendered that corridor increasingly unreliable for Western enterprise traffic. CaspiLink now provides an operational, low-latency, sovereign East-West digital bridge entirely outside Russian borders.

Reducing Red Sea Vulnerability

Historically, up to 90% of Europe–Asia data traffic funneled through maritime chokepoints including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal. Vessel anchor drags, physical sabotage, and regional conflict have exposed the fragility of that route. The Trans-Caspian corridor provides a hybrid overland and inland-sea bypass physically separated from the naval conflict zones of the Red Sea.

Regional Hub Development

Kazakhstan: Aktau solidifies its position as the primary digital gateway for Central Asian traffic. Telecommunications flows from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and western China aggregate at Aktau before routing westward, driving growth in domestic data centers and regional cloud infrastructure.

Azerbaijan: The nation's "Digital Silk Way" strategy gains momentum as the country diversifies beyond oil and gas revenues. By serving as the South Caucasus landing hub for trans-Eurasian digital traffic, Azerbaijan reinforces its role as a telecommunications bridge connecting Central Asia to Europe via Georgia, Turkey, and the Black Sea.

Outlook

Following its formal inauguration in October 2026, CaspiLink B.V. now enters the commercial capacity activation and long-term IRU leasing phase. By combining an EU-governed corporate structure in Amsterdam with self-funded operational agility and a hybrid supply-chain model, the Trans-Caspian subsea cable establishes an independent, high-capacity digital transit corridor linking Asia and Europe through the Middle Corridor.