Facebook and Google’s Subsea Cable To Carry Over 190 Terabits per Second for Singapore, Japan & APAC

Facebook and Google are collaborating on the planned Apricot subsea cable system that will connect Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Guam. Slated to launch in 2024, the subsea cable infrastructure will help satisfy the demand for 4G and 5G connectivity across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

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Bikash Koley, Vice President and Head of Google Global Networking and Head of Technology and Strategy at Google Cloud for Telecommunications, explained that having stable connectivity is crucial when people are increasingly fulfiling work, recreational and social activities from home.

Aside from the Apricot project, Google and Facebook also announced the Echo subsea cable that was unveiled in March 2021. Echo will connect the U.S., Singapore, Indonesia and Guam.

"The Echo and Apricot cables are complementary submarine systems that will offer benefits with multiple paths in and out of Asia, including unique routes through southern Asia, ensuring a significantly higher degree of resilience for Google Cloud and digital services. Together they’ll provide businesses and startups in Asia with lower latency, more bandwidth, and increased resilience in their connectivity between Southeast Asia, North Asia and the United States," said Koley in a Google Cloud blog post.

Credit: Facebook

According to Facebook, Apricot aims to meet growing data demands in the APAC and support other cable systems such as Echo and Bifrost, which will be the first transpacific cables to cross the Java Sea in a new route.

The Apricot cable system is expected to have an initial design capacity of over 190 terabits per second. The technology seeks to help Facebook widen global network infrastructure and improve the company’s services.

Philippine telecommunications giant PLDT announced that it will invest US$80 million (approximately S$108.62 million) in the Apricot cable system.

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"We continue to invest in international submarine cable systems, which are necessary infrastructure for global communications supporting ICT services," wrote PLDT President and Chief Executive Officer Alfredo Panlilio in an emailed statement.

"The construction of this APRICOT cable system is vital to the Philippine economy with rapidly increasing data traffic and is aligned with our efforts to make the Philippines a strategic data center hub in the region."

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Written by Sophia Lopez