Google has announced the second submarine cable, a private 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 by the end of 2020.
Google is already investing 12 times in cables, but only the second private investment. Earlier this year, 2018, Google announced the construction of Curie, a cable that would connect Chile to Los Angeles, a cable that can be seen in the image above, where all the cables that Google has invested in one way or another appear.
The addition of Dunant will give Google exclusive network capacity on one of the busiest routes on the Internet. This cable offers enough capacity and connectivity for Google Cloud customers for years and allows Google to choose a path that offers the lowest latency. It won’t be used to give mortals access to Facebook, but it will allow Google Cloud customers to have a more robust service.
Google also plans to continue investing in consortium cables, such as the Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) cable system, the Havfrue cable that connects the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, and the Hong Kong-Guam cable that connects the main submarine communication centers in Asia, so the company is gradually acquiring more and more of the world’s infrastructure.