Latest news with #WaterworthProject
WIRED
19-02-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Meta Will Build the World's Longest Undersea Cable
Feb 19, 2025 6:19 AM Meta's Waterworth Project will provide internet connectivity on five continents, with landing points in India, the United States, Brazil, and South Africa. Meta has presented the Waterworth Project, an initiative aimed at building a 50,000-kilometer undersea cable that will provide internet connectivity in five continents. The company seeks to strengthen control over the management of its services and guarantee the necessary infrastructure for the development of its products, especially those based in artificial intelligence. Submarine cables support more than 95 percent of intercontinental internet traffic. 'Project Waterworth will be a multibillion dollar, multiyear investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world's digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high-speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world,' the company said in a post about the undertaking. The project was first reported last fall by entrepreneur Sunil Tagare. The interoceanic cable will be longer than the circumference of the Earth, making it the longest in the world, according to the company. It will have landing points in India, the United States, Brazil, South Africa, and other strategic locations. The company suggests that the construction of this network will bring significant opportunities in the AI space, particularly in the Indian market. "In India, where we've already seen significant growth and investment in digital infrastructure, Waterworth will help accelerate this progress and support the country's ambitious plans for its digital economy," the compay's post reads. Last week, President Donald Trump and India's prime minister Shri Narendra Modi issued a joint statement on cooperation between the two countries. The document includes commitments on undersea technologies and mentions Project Waterworth. "Supporting greater Indian Ocean connectivity, the leaders also welcomed Meta's announcement of a multibillion, multiyear investment in an undersea cable project that will begin work this year and ultimately stretch over 50,000 km to connect five continents and strengthen global digital highways in the Indian Ocean region and beyond," the statement released by the White House said. The new undersea network will use a cable architecture with 24 fiber pairs and routing designed to maximize deep-water routing, reaching up to 7,000 meters. Meta claims to have improved its burial techniques in high-risk areas, such as shallow near-shore waters, to reduce the risk of damage from ship anchors and other external factors. Meta's ecosystem, which includes services such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, by some accounts comprises as much as 10 percent of fixed traffic and 22 percent of mobile traffic globally. Over the past decade, the company has developed more than 20 undersea cables in collaboration with various partners. Waterworth would be the first project to be fully owned by the company. With this initiative, Meta will compete directly with Google, which has around 33 undersea cable routes, some of them exclusively owned, according to the specialist firm TeleGeography. Other technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft are also investing in this sector, although they only own shared interests or acquire capacity on existing cables. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta plans to build the world's longest subsea cable that will connect the US to India
Meta plans a multibillion-dollar global underwater cable project spanning 31,000 miles. The project will ramp up data transmission and connect the US to India, Brazil, and South Africa. Meta says it aims to improve global connectivity and support innovation in artificial intelligence. Meta has unveiled plans to spend billions of dollars as part of its multi-year ambition to build the world's longest subsea cable and accelerate AI innovation. In a blog post on Friday, the company said its new Waterworth Project will cover over 50,000 kilometers, or about 31,000 miles, making the project's cable longer than the Earth's 24,901-mile circumference. The Waterworth Project aims to connect five continents, linking the US to India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions. Meta didn't specify the exact cost and timeline of the project, but it said it would be a "multibillion-dollar, multi-year investment" to improve global connectivity. Last November, TechCrunch reported the company may spend over $10 billion on a nearly 25,000-mile underwater cable project led by Meta's South Africa office that the company would 100% own. Subsea cables form an integral part of the world's internet infrastructure, shuttling data around the world at close to the speed of light thanks to their fiber optic technology. In its blog, Meta noted that cables spanning the world's oceans account for the transfer of "more than 95% of intercontinental traffic." Meta sees the subsea cables as vital to unlocking future AI innovation as CEO Mark Zuckerberg increasingly shifts the company's focus to generative AI. Last month, the company announced plans to boost its spending up to $65 billion this year as it seeks to build vast data centers capable of training and hosting the increasingly powerful large language models at the heart of the generative AI boom. According to Meta's blog post, the Waterworth Project aims to ramp up data transmission capacity by using a fiber optic cable containing 24 fiber pairs instead of the typical systems that use 8 to 16 fiber pairs. It said the project's features include a first-of-its-kind routing to optimize the cable installed in deep water at depths up to 7 kilometers, or about 4.3 miles. It also said it would use "enhanced burial techniques" in shallow, high-risk areas to protect against damage from ship anchors and potential hazards, which would maintain cable resilience. "As AI continues to transform industries and societies around the world, it's clear that capacity, resilience, and global reach are more important than ever to support leading infrastructure," it said. The project's announcement comes after tankers dragging their anchors have severed undersea cables in recent months in the Baltic Sea and East China Sea. Officials in Europe have accused Russia of sabotaging undersea cables, while Taiwan has said it suspects China is behind the damage off its northern shores. Cable resilience is key to the global financial system, which depends on a vast network of undersea cables that crisscross the sea floor, carry $10 trillion worth of transactions every day, and power Wall Street's global trading and communications. "We've driven infrastructure innovation with various partners over the past decade, developing more than 20 subsea cables," Meta's blog post said. "With Project Waterworth, we can help ensure that the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work." Meta didn't immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider
