Again in November, we broke the information that Meta — proprietor of Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of customers accounting for 10% of all fastened and 22% of all cellular site visitors — was near saying work on a serious new, $10 billion+ subsea cable venture to attach up the globe. The purpose was to provide Meta extra management over the way it runs its personal companies.
As we speak, Meta confirmed particulars of our report: Undertaking Waterworth is the official title, and it is going to be 50,000 kilometers lengthy when accomplished, making it the world’s longest subsea cable venture.
Lining up with what we had heard concerning the venture months in the past, the community will join up 5 continents with touchdown factors in america, Brazil, India, South Africa, and different key areas. Fb significantly calls out the alternatives in India, and the position that the community will play in the way it rolls out AI companies globally, as two key causes for constructing the community.
When it comes to the community itself, Meta says it is going to be breaking new floor with its structure, utilizing 24 fiber pair cables, and what it describes as first-of-its-kind routing, “maximizing the cable laid in deep water — at depths as much as 7,000 meters” together with new burial strategies to cut back faults in areas deemed “excessive danger,” both due to geographical points, or politics — and generally each.
Beforehand, we famous that geopolitics is without doubt one of the main elements available in the market influencing Meta to construct its personal subsea infrastructure. That has certainly performed a task right here.
On Thursday, the White Home printed a joint leaders assertion from U.S. President Trump and India’s Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, which detailed a prolonged checklist of areas the place the 2 international locations would cooperate. Tucked into that lengthy doc was a dedication to co-developing undersea applied sciences as a part of a protection partnership, in addition to a word about Meta’s 50,000km Waterworth venture, and India’s position in financing a few of it.
“Supporting larger Indian Ocean connectivity, the leaders additionally welcomed Meta’s announcement of a multi-billion, multi-year funding in an undersea cable venture that can start work this yr,” the assertion famous. “India intends to put money into upkeep, restore and financing of undersea cables within the Indian Ocean, utilizing trusted distributors.”
As for what the cable will likely be used for: In November, certainly one of our sources postulated that the expansion of AI knowledge facilities and cloud companies in India, the world’s most populous nation, was a major cause for Meta’s venture within the first place.
Meta has declined to remark to us on extra particular particulars however in its weblog submit offered some high-level concepts of functions and highlighted the nation and AI.
“Digital communication, video experiences and on-line transactions,” are among the many functions that the subsea cable will allow, based on the submit, penned by Meta’s VP of engineering Gaya Nagarajan and its international head of community investments Alex-Handrah Aimé. “Undertaking Waterworth will likely be a multi-billion greenback, multi-year funding to strengthen the size and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the ample, excessive velocity connectivity wanted to drive AI innovation all over the world.”
This isn’t Meta’s first subsea cable effort, neither is it the one main know-how firm to construct its personal subsea infrastructure.
Based on telecom analysts Telegeography, Meta is an element proprietor of 16 current networks, together with the 2Africa cable that encircles the continent (others in that venture are carriers, together with Orange, Vodafone, China Cell, Bayobab/MTN, and extra). This new cable venture can be the primary wholly owned by Meta itself.
That may put Meta into the identical class as Google, which has involvement in some 33 totally different routes, together with a number of regional efforts during which it’s the sole proprietor, per Telegeography’s monitoring. Different Massive Tech corporations which are both half house owners or capability consumers in subsea cables embody Amazon and Microsoft, neither of that are entire house owners of any route themselves.
