Yesterday, Google announced their latest project: an undersea internet cable project. Named the Grace Hopper cable, after the famous American computer scientist, the cable will connect the United States with the United Kingdom and Spain. More specifically, it will have its connection points in New York, Bude in Cornwall and Bilbao in Spain. Google expects the internet cable to be finished by 2022.
The Grace Hopper Undersea Internet Cable
The latest announcement from Google is the plan to lay over 3,000 miles of cable across the transatlantic. The distance covered between Cornwall, New York and Bilbao is approximately 3,290 miles. The internet cable is due to funnel around 340-350 terabytes of data every second. This is roughly 17.5 million people streaming 4,000 videos at the same time. It will be made up of 16 fibre pairs and will be the first to use new switching architecture developed collaboratively with SubCom.
New Step for Google
This cable is groundbreaking as it marks the first private investment in a private cable route to the UK. It is also the company’s first ever cable route to Spain. They expect this internet cable to be more reliable than existing fibre-optic cables. Google is hoping to implement a new technique of optical fibre switching. The intention is to increase reliability for global connections and reduce outages.
Existing Cables
Google already has 3 privately-owned cables connected undersea. The one already online is Curie, which runs from Los Angeles to Valparaiso in Chile. There is also Dunant, from Virginia Beach in the United States to France, which will be online by the end of 2020. Additionally, Google has Equiano running from Portugal down the Western coast of Africa to South Africa. This subsea internet cable is due to be completed in 2021.
Future Plans
Spain is becoming an up-and-coming country for Google, with plans to launch a new Google Cloud region in Madrid soon. Additionally, Google has announced investments in 15 subsea cables, implicating links between India and Italy.
