Google and Facebook invest in a new submarine internet cable in Asia
Steph Deschamps / August 19, 2021
Google and Facebook presented on Monday their project to install a new undersea telecommunications cable linking Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia.
Named Apricot, this 12,000 km cable should be operational in 2024 if the authorities give the necessary approvals, the two Californian groups said in communiqués.
Apricot Cable is part of our efforts to expand global networks and better serve the more than 3.5 billion people who use our apps every month, commented Nico Roehrich, director of engineering at Facebook, which also includes Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
In March, the two Silicon Valley neighbors had already unveiled another digital data transit cable, named Echo, linking North America to Singapore and Indonesia.
The Echo and Apricot cables are complementary undersea systems that will provide much better resiliency for Google Cloud and digital services, said Bikash Koley, vice president of Google Cloud, the online search giant's remote computing division.
Together, they will provide businesses and startups in Asia with more responsive connections, more bandwidth and stability between Southeast Asia, North Asia and the US.
Google and Facebook pulled the plug this year on an undersea cable project that would have connected California and Hong Kong, due to tensions between the United States and China.
The U.S. Department of Justice recommended last year that the cable avoid Hong Kong.