The CEO of Orange Wholesale confirmed this week that the telco isn't looking to sell its data center assets.

During a roundtable at Mobile World Congress (MWC) yesterday, Michaël Trabbia told DCD that the French telco isn't looking to sell these assets.

Trabbia said that the carrier is looking to monetize its data centers.

"We have some quite powerful data centers that we have been creating for telecom needs, including in France, where we have top-tier data centers, so we are considering options for them, but not to sell them. That's not the ambition," he said.

His comments come months after the Financial Times reported that Orange was looking for a data center buyer.

Orange owns around 75 data centers across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. According to DataCenterMap, the company has at least five data centers in France, and is present in a number of other colocation facilities around Paris.

Trabbia hinted that the telco will look to offer colocation services across its portfolio.

"They [data centers] are hosting critical functions for us, power network, for instance, but [we need] to be able to build much more capacity to support the growth, especially in the French market," he added.

"For instance, we have a lot of Orange Business customers that come to us, and they tell us, 'look, we need space, we need power to host our data."

Last year at MWC, Orange said it would look to scale and open up its data centers to more third-parties, in the same way its towers now host hardware from other telecoms provider – saying its objective was “not to sell these assets for cash.”

During the roundtable, Trabbia also highlighted the telco's addition of two new subsea cable repair ships, which were added to its fleet last year as part of plans to replace some of its aging fleet.

These ships were announced by Orange Marine, the subsea cable subsidiary of Orange.

The two ships will mainly be dedicated to submarine cable maintenance, but will be capable of laying connecting segments up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) long. Delivery is expected in 2028 and 2029.

This will take the total number of Orange Marine ships to 6, plus an additional three through its Italian subsidiary Elettra TLC, according to Orange Marine's website.

Trabbia acknowledged the challenges around securing cable ships, noting that for now, there are no plans to add more, but hinted that Orange could look to add more in the future.

Cable ships are few and far between. According to the ISCPC, there are around 60 in operation, many of which are more than 30 years old. With more than 400 subsea cables running and demand increasing, a limited supply of vessels can delay projects and slow repairs.