X
Innovation

Google is building its second private subsea cable

The Dunant cable will be the first private transatlantic cable built by a non-telecom company.
Written by Stephanie Condon, Senior Writer
pasted-image-07.png

Google on Tuesday announced it's building a private subsea cable from Virginia Beach in the United States to the French Atlantic coast -- the first private transatlantic cable built by a non-telecom company. The cable, called Dunant, is expected to be available in late 2020.

This marks Google's twelfth subsea cable investment but just its second private one. Earlier this year, the company announced it's building Curie, a private cable connecting Chile to Los Angeles.

The addition of Dunant will give Google exclusive network capacity across one of the busiest routes on the internet. Building a private cable offers a few benefits, Google explained: It ensures sufficient capacity and connectivity for Google Cloud customers for years, and it allows Google to choose a route that offers the lowest latency.

Meanwhile, Google also plans to keep investing in consortium cables. Its prior consortium cable investments include the Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) cable system, the Havfrue cable connecting the US to Denmark and Ireland, and the Hong Kong-Guam cable that connects major subsea communication hubs in Asia.

Google is working with TE SubCom to design, manufacture and lay the cable for Dunant.

In other Google Cloud news, Google announced earlier in the week that its Los Angeles region has gone live, making it Google's seventeenth region overall and fifth in the US.

Editorial standards