2018 | Google’s Subsea Cables

Alphabet’s Google, which is known for their search engine and many social services, announced that their Google Cloud program will be investing in subsea cables to advance cloud technologies in new regions. Google has already invested over 30 Billion in infrastructure over the past three years. In 2019 three subsea cables will be commissioned: Curie (named after renowned scientist Marie Curie), a private cable connecting Chile to Los Angeles; Havfrue, a consortium cable connecting the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland; and the Hong Kong-Guam Cable system (HK-G), a consortium cable interconnecting major subsea communication hubs in Asia.

By installing these subsea cables, Google will become the first non-telecom company to build a private intercontinental cable. This will enable them to aid in improving global connectivity that provides value to their customers. By owning the cable Google with have the ability to control the design as well as the optimization so that Google can provide the best service. With these three new subsea cables, Google will have a direct investment in 11 subsea cables. Stated by Google their cloud investments are already broad.

“These new investments expand our existing cloud network. The Google network has over 100 points of presence (map) and over 7,500 edge caching nodes (map). This investment means faster and more reliable connectivity for all our users–Simply put, it wouldn’t be possible Deliver products like Machine Learning Engine, Spanner, BigQuery and other Google Cloud Platform and G Suite services at the quality of service users expect without the Google network. Our cable systems provide the speed, capacity and reliability of Google is known for worldwide”

Along with the huge expense of building data centers all over the world, private fiber optic infrastructure, and other software tools, there are few companies that can put down the cash to compete in cloud infrastructure. This puts a lot of pressure on Google to perform well against rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft who have both completed ultra-fast subsea cables with Facebook. However, there is a lot of revenue to be made in the cloud industry. By 2020, research firm Gartner estimates $1 trillion in IT spending could move to the cloud.