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At the weekend, Facebook owner announced Meta on ”Waterworth project‘An ambitious plan to build a Globe-Salking, 31,000-Mile Substitute internet cable. That is longer from start to finish than the circumference of the earth. When completed, the huge cable is expected to connect the US, Brazil, South Africa, India and other regions along the route. The project represents the latest push from large technology companies Manage a larger part of the submarine cable infrastructure. That general shift in WHO maintains the “pipes” of the internet, can shift even further with the increased data requirements introduced by competition over advanced AI.
Although Meta has not provided any specific details about the exact locations of his routes, an image shows an windy path that starts on the American east coast, goes to South America and travels over the lower Atlantic Ocean before walking back to India. The last part of the cable crosses all the way along the Pacific Ocean to a harbor on the American west coast. It is still unclear how much project Waterworth will cost (Meta simply said it expects a “multi -billion dollar” investment). Last rumors reported by Techcrunch In November, however, Meta claimed to spend $ 10 billion on a BOL-overvoltage submarine cable project that corresponds to the description of Waterworth. A Meta spokesperson told Popular science They expect the project to end the construction “by the end of this decade.”
This is not the first outing of Meta in Subsea connectivity. The company has Reportedly Had at least 20 different cable projects in the last decade. However, these new cables are specifically built with artificial intelligence in mind. Waterworth Project will use a 24-fiber-PAIR system that will be useful for more data-intensive AI projects. For comparison: much smaller undersea cables usually only have 8 to 16 fiber pairs.
“While AI industries and societies continue to transform all over the world, it is clear that capacity, resilience and worldwide reach are more important than ever to support the most important infrastructure,” said Meta Network Nagarajan and Aimé’s executives in a statement.
Meta also makes an attempt to protect his investment against the elements. The company says that the cable will lay up to 7,000 meters deep and use “improved burial techniques” to prevent damage caused by Schipankers and other hazards. Unwanted damage to cables is top of mind. In January, NATO launched an initiative to increase the supervision of ships crossing the Baltic Sea after a few suspicious cases in which Anchor’s cables were damaged and caused malfunctions. But cables are also broken by less everyday perpetrators such as natural disasters And shark.
Related: [The mystery surrounding two severed Baltic subsea internet cables is getting murkier]
When completed, Meta says that the Waterworth Project could increase global cooperation between the connected countries and accelerate economic development, in particular in regions with a lower income that have been placed along the routes. At least some countries are optimistic. This week, the United States and India has released a joint statement The prizes initiative, of which they believe it could “strengthen the global digital highways in the Indian Ocean region and beyond”.
“India is planning to invest in maintenance, repair and financing of undersea cables in the Indian Ocean, with the help of trusted suppliers,” the countries said in the statement.
But expansion cable projects such as these are also with some worries. Some marine scientists say it remains unclear what Long -term effects electromagnetic fields Generated by cables can be on the health of marine life. There are also possible political complications that must be taken into account. Meta (then called Facebook) and Google were forced in 2020 Let plans leave to expand an undersea cable Connecting the US with Hong Kong after American security authorities warned that it might be a target of the espionage of the Chinese government.
US TECH Companies Consolidate Substitute cables prior to AI Push
Meta is not the only American technology company that is large in submarine cables. Last year Google announced plans Invest more than $ 1 billion To build new fibers that connects the US with Japan and other parts of the Pacific. The company also started one few cables in Australia. Amazon, that too increased his involvement in internet infrastructure projects Is in recent years Reportedly Looking for building new transatlantic fibers that connect the US to Ireland. In general, companies such as Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon and Cloud Service Providers have reportedly contributed to more than 60 submarine cables towards the end of 2024. That is more than 20 According to research group Telegeography. Content providers such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft owned or rented more than half of the submarine bandwidth by 2018.
That trend is expected to continue. Worldwide technology company Analysys Mason recently brought a forecast of 2024 Estimate that the global submarine fiber-optical telecom cable market will increase from $ 7.96 billion in 2023 to $ 9.8 billion by 2029, with “substantial market growth” from a handful of so-called “hyperscalers” such as meta. Part of that growth will be fed by increasing the data requirements with regard to advanced AI models. Countries worldwide rush to build massive data and other physical infrastructure that is needed to support all that computer use. None of this will ultimately matter in the long term if there is not enough fiber capacity to send all those information all over the world.