Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, planned to spend over $10 billion of investment to build a new, major, fibre-optic subsea cable extending around the world, a 40,000+ kilometer project.
The company is the the second-biggest driver of internet usage globally. Its properties — and their billions of users — account for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic.
Meta’s investments into artificial intelligence stand to boost that usage even further. So to make sure it will have reliable infrastructure to support that business, Meta is taking the pipes into its own hands.
Sunil Tagare, a subsea cable expert (and pioneer in the space, as founder of Flag Telecom), who was the first to report Meta’s plans back in October, told TechCrunch that the plan is to start with a budget of $2 billion but as the project builds out that figure is likely to go up to more than $10 billion as the project extends into years of work.
“There’s a real tight supply on cable ships,” said Ranulf Scarborough, a submarine cable industry analyst was quoted by TechCrunch.
“They’re expensive at the minute and booked out several years ahead. Finding the available resources to do it soon is a challenge.”
The cable, when completed, would give Meta a dedicated pipe for data traffic around the world.
The planned route of the cable, says sources, currently sees it spanning from the east coast of the U.S. to India via South Africa, and then to the west coast of the U.S. from India via Australia — making a “W” shape around the globe.
