American Tech Giants Put 1.67 Petabits of New Capacity Into The Far East

A good Tech Capital article on the new wave of American Tech Giant cables in Asia: https://thetechcapital.com/subsea-shake-up-how-new-cables-are-wiring-southeast-asias-ai-era/.

My list of the most important new cables:
1. Apricot is a 12 fibre pair Southeast Asian cable with throughput of 290 Terabits. It bypasses China, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea in a clear signal to the Chinese government to get lost. Google and META are consortium members.
2. Echo is a 12 fibre pair Pacific cable directly linking Singapore to the United States. It has 144 Tbps throughput. Google and Facebook are equal partners in the project. The lower throughput reflects the 20,000 kilometer length of the cable. Same holds true for Bifrost.
3. Bifrost is the sister cable linking Singapore to the US. Its digital horse power is 180 Tbps
4. Waterworth is a 480 Tbps behemoth with 24 fibre pairs. We still don't know the exact landing points in Asia. It will land on both the West and East coasts of India as well as Australia. But it must also connect to the rest of META cables serving Southeast Asia and Japan. The answer to that question is a big mystery.
5. Candle is a Pacific rim cable whose throughput will be 570 Tbps. Facebook leads the consortium.

All five cables use the open cable business model. Ownership is defined not in terms of lit capacity, but fibre pairs and spectrum. All decisions outside of wet plant and terrestrial power feed equipment are left to the individual owners. This includes submarine line termination equipment, POPs, and backhaul fibre. In principle it can include the front haul transport from the beach manhole.

Map of New American Tech Giant Subsea Cables in Indian Ocean and Pacific Rim


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