Thursday 13 August, 2026
GSMA Member Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, the University of Genoa, one of the oldest in Italy and one of the best in the world on marine and maritime issues, and SubOptic Foundation, a philanthropic organization that aims to promote knowledge of the digital infrastructure sector among global stakeholders, launch the first edition of the Second-Level University Master in Digital Subsea Infrastructure (DSI), the world’s first postgraduate programme dedicated to submarine communications and digital critical infrastructure.
Subsea digital and energy infrastructure are today strategic assets for economic development, security, and global connectivity. The new programme has been designed to train professionals capable of operating across the authorisation, design, deployment, maintenance, and monitoring processes for subsea digital networks.
The academic activities, coordinated by the Department of Naval, Electrical, Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering (DITEN) of the University of Genoa, will benefit from the contribution of experienced professionals from Sparkle, a leading operator in the submarine cable sector with a proprietary fiber-optic network spanning more than 600,000 km across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. The programme will also have a strong international dimension thanks to the contribution of SubOptic, the global association representing the world’s leading companies involved in the design, manufacturing, deployment, operation of subsea infrastructure and whose objectives include training and attracting young talents to the industry. In addition, the programme benefits from an academic cooperation agreement with the University of California, Berkeley (USA) within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA171 Programme – Learning Mobility of Individuals.
The one-year postgraduate programme, running from November 2026 to October 2027, offers a strongly interdisciplinary learning experience covering technological, environmental, engineering, economic, and legal aspects of the sector. It is designed to prepare highly qualified professionals to address the challenges of this rapidly evolving field in both national and international contexts.
Federico Delfino, Rector of the University of Genoa, comments: “With this programme, the University of Genoa expands its educational offering in a sector set to play an increasingly strategic role for global telecommunications and the blue economy. The collaboration with Sparkle and the SubOptic Foundation is a concrete example of how universities, research and businesses can work together to develop highly specialized skills and meet the challenges of innovation. This new programme showcases our University’s interdisciplinary vocation and strengthens Genoa’s role as an international reference point for education and research in marine and maritime technologies.”
“With the BlueMed cable and the Genoa Landing Platform, we have helped establish Genoa as one of the Mediterranean’s leading digital hubs and a strategic gateway for new global communications routes,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “Today, alongside the development of digital infrastructure, we are proud to collaborate with the University of Genoa in educating a new generation of professionals who will help drive the growth of a sector that is becoming increasingly strategic for the digital economy and the country’s competitiveness.”
“Education and research sit at the heart of everything the SubOptic Foundation does,” said Jayne Stowell, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of SubOptic Foundation UK. “Our Foundation exists to foster global cooperation, share technical knowledge, and build dialogue between industry and academia, and this programme embodies exactly that spirit. Partnering with Sparkle and the University of Genoa on this programme lets us turn our mission into a concrete pathway for the next generation to build real careers in submarine cables”.
Find out more about the Digital Subsea Infrastructure (DSI) programme.
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