Google and Facebook to build new submarine cable connecting Japan and Southeast Asia in 2024

On August 16, Google and Facebook jointly announced that they will participate in the development of a new submarine cable system in 2024 to improve Internet connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Facebook said the infrastructure project, called Apricot, will connect Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines and Indonesia to help meet the growing demand for broadband access and 5G wireless connections. In March this year, the company announced two trans-Pacific submarine cables, Bifrost and Echo, connecting Singapore and the West Coast of the United States, with Google participating in the construction of the latter.

Google said in a blog post that Echo and Apricot are two complementary underwater systems that will improve the resiliency of Google Cloud and the company's other digital services. According to Facebook, the initial design capacity of the new fiber optic link across the Asia-Pacific region is more than 190Tbps.

Currently, both Silicon Valley giants are investing in building internet infrastructure in regions they see as having the greatest growth potential. Last year, Google also announced a $10 billion investment plan to help India advance its digitalization process over the next five to seven years.

In recent years, Google has been involved in the construction of several submarine cables. Google is expanding its massive global submarine cable network to new regions to accelerate the development of its cloud computing business and catch up with rivals Microsoft and Amazon.