DR Congo Plans a $1.5 Billion Fiber Line Along Its River
DR CONGO · TECHNOLOGY
Key Facts
—The plan: DR Congo signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Genew Technologies on June 25, 2026 for a fiber-optic corridor along the Congo River.
—The route: Roughly 2,100 km of infrastructure: about 1,700 km of cable following the river from Muanda on the Atlantic to Kisangani, plus some 400 km of land links.
—The price: Genew chief executive Wu Minhua puts the overall cost at about 1.5 billion dollars, with more than 400 million needed for phase one.
—Why the river: Waterways sidestep the DRC’s broken roads, vast distances and insecure overland routes — the obstacles that stall most infrastructure there.
—The caveat: It is an MoU, not a contract: financing, stages, guarantees and a schedule remain undefined.
—The pattern: Chinese firms already built much of the DRC’s existing backbone, extending Beijing’s grip on Africa’s digital arteries.
The Congo fiber optic project signed on June 25 would run 1,700 kilometres of cable along the Congo River from Muanda to Kisangani — a 1.5-billion-dollar bet, with China’s Genew Technologies, that the river can carry data where roads cannot.
A cable that follows the water
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s ministry of posts, telecommunications and digital affairs signed the memorandum of understanding with Genew Technologies, a Shenzhen-based equipment maker. The document sketches one of the most unusual connectivity projects on the continent.
Rather than trenching cable across a country the size of Western Europe, the plan uses the Congo River and its tributaries as the corridor. About 1,700 kilometres would follow the water from Muanda, at the Atlantic mouth, upriver to Kisangani, with nearly 400 kilometres of terrestrial links completing the network.
The ministry argues the river route sidesteps what usually kills Congolese infrastructure: the state of the roads, the logistics of moving equipment across vast distances, and the cost of securing overland routes.
Why the Congo fiber optic bet runs through the river
The DRC is one of the least-connected large countries on Earth, with most of its roughly 100 million people offline or dependent on patchy, expensive mobile data. Its geography is the reason, and the river is the one highway the country has always had.
Fiber along the water would link the capital region to the interior cities that the road network barely reaches. Kisangani, the terminus, is the DRC’s gateway to its northeast — and a hub the government wants tied into the national backbone.
The stakes go beyond browsing speeds. Connectivity underpins mobile money, e-government and the digitisation of the mining supply chains the state wants to tax and trace.
Mobile operators would be the first customers, buying wholesale capacity to feed towns along the route. Cheaper backhaul is the single biggest lever for cutting African data prices.
Genew is an equipment and solutions vendor rather than a global carrier, which makes financing the central question. Projects of this scale in the DRC typically need export credit or state guarantees before construction can start.
Genew’s chief executive, Wu Minhua, put the total cost at about 1.5 billion dollars, according to Ecofin Agency. More than 400 million dollars would be needed for the first phase alone.
An MoU is not a network
For now, the project exists on paper. The ministry has not specified stages, financing structure, public funding, guarantees or a schedule, and an MoU establishes intent rather than obligation.
Big Congolese infrastructure announcements have a long history of stalling between signature and construction. The dollar figure, supplied by the vendor, should be read as an opening estimate rather than a budget.
Earlier backbone segments were built and then stranded by maintenance gaps and unpaid bills. A river cable would also need protecting against snags, floods and theft across thousands of kilometres.
Still, the choice of partner is telling. Chinese companies already built much of the DRC’s existing fiber backbone, and Genew would extend a pattern in which Beijing’s contractors wire Africa’s most strategic geographies.
The bigger contest over Congo’s connections
Digital infrastructure has become part of the same great-power competition that surrounds the DRC’s cobalt and copper. Washington and Brussels back the Lobito corridor to move minerals out; Chinese firms, meanwhile, keep winning the contracts that move Congolese data.
For Kinshasa, the calculus is pragmatic: China builds fast, finances flexibly and asks few questions. The risk is dependence on a single supplier for the nervous system of a future digital economy.
A national artery would also change how Congolese traffic moves, much of which routes today through neighbouring countries’ gateways. Keeping the data at home keeps the fees at home too.
Kinshasa, for its part, keeps hedging: an American-linked satellite here, a Chinese cable there. Sovereignty, in Congolese digital policy, means never depending on a single patron.
If even the first phase is built, the river that has carried Congo’s trade for centuries would begin carrying its internet too. That alone would redraw the country’s digital map.
Frequently asked questions
What did DR Congo sign with Genew Technologies?
On June 25, 2026, the DRC’s digital ministry signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Genew Technologies for roughly 2,100 kilometres of fiber infrastructure — about 1,700 km along the Congo River from Muanda to Kisangani, plus some 400 km on land.
How much would the Congo fiber optic project cost?
Genew’s chief executive, Wu Minhua, put the overall cost at about 1.5 billion dollars, with more than 400 million needed for the first phase. Financing, stages and a timetable have not yet been set out.
Why build the cable along the river?
The Congo River and its tributaries offer a deployment corridor that avoids the DRC’s greatest obstacles on land: vast distances, broken roads, heavy logistics and the difficulty of securing overland routes.
Is this a done deal?
No. It is a memorandum of understanding, not a contract — it formalises an intention to cooperate but does not confirm funding or a start date.
Connected Coverage
The DRC’s scramble to control its own infrastructure is a running Rio Times thread: see our reports on the country’s first Earth-observation satellite and its home-built carbon-credit registry, both part of Africa: The New Scramble.
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