Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecommunications services provider, and Gulf Bridge International (GBI), a global cloud provider for the Middle-East and Europe, announced a strategic agreement to unlock the capacity on GBI's India-Middle East-Europe submarine cable system.

Under the agreement, Airtel through its subsidiary has acquired the rights to use significant capacity on Middle East-Europe leg of GBI's cable system.

With this new investment Airtel has further consolidated its leading position as a global capacity provider. It now has large capacities-owned and leased - on multiple international submarine cable systems. GBI's cable asset will complement Bharti Group's existing global network viz. IMEWE, EIG, SMW4 and MENA and add significant long term bandwidth capacity, enabling it to serve the booming data demand across emerging markets like India and Africa.

GBI is a multilayer terrestrial and subsea cable meshed network bridges the East to the West through the Middle East, and helps contribute to the region's transformation towards knowledge-based economies.

Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO for Global Voice and Data Business, Bharti Airtel said, "We are delighted to announce this agreement with GBI. With this, we are adding a large capacity to meet the growing data, content demand in markets like India as well as serve the connectivity needs of global carriers and enterprise customers. The agreement offers great synergies to Airtel and GB1 as both partners will able to build on each other's strengths in their respective markets. This will also complement Airtel's existing global network spanning 250,000 Mans with presence in 50 countries and contribute to our vision of serving customers with a future ready network that is built on cutting-edge technology."

Shares of the company declined Rs 2.15, or 0.52%, to trade at  Rs 411.70.  The total volume of shares traded  was  83,915 at the BSE (10.50 a.m., Wednesday).