Meta To Build World’s Longest Subsea Fibre Cable

Meta Platforms announces plan to build Project Waterworth, a 50,000 km cable linking five continents as it ramps infrastructure investments

By Matthew Broersma,
2 min
Zodiac boat laying a data cable linking 2Africa cable system to land. Keywords: networking, broadband, undersea cable. Image credit: 2Africa
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Meta Platforms has announced a plan to build a 50,000 kilometre (31,000 mile) undersea cable connecting five major continents.

Project Waterworth, as the cable is called, is intended to be the world’s longest subsea data cable, coming at a time when tech giants are increasingly investing in the physical infrastructure that powers their services.

It is to use 24-pair fibre-optic technology, which Meta said would deliver the highest capacity currently available, linking the US, India, Brazil, South Africa and other key regions.

The company said faster data transfer would enable economic cooperation and bring more people online.

A ship at sea. Keywords: undersea cable, internet, broadband, networking. Image credit: Unsplash
Image credit: Unsplash

High-speed link

It said subsea cables are responsible for carrying 95 percent of intercontinental data traffic, and touted the new cable as supporting its massive investments in AI infrastructure, such as data centres.

“Project Waterworth will be a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high speed connectivity,” the company said in a blog post.

The company said it would deploy innovative routing that would allow the cable to be laid at depths of up to 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) and would use enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near coastlines, to prevent damage.

Meta didn’t provide details on the cost of the cable or when it would be built.

A report in October suggested Project Waterworth could cost $2 billion (£1.6bn) and be fully owned by Meta.

Meta also participated in building the 2Africa subsea cable system, launched in 2020, which at 45,000 km is currently the world’s longest subsea data cable.

An illustration of the path of Meta's Project Waterworth undersea cable. Image credit: Meta
The proposed path of Meta’s Project Waterworth undersea cable. Image credit: Meta

AI infrastructure

2Africa connects 33 countries with 46 landing points in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with backing from Telecom Egypt, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Vodafone and the West Indian Ocean Cable Company.

Like other tech companies, Meta has been heavily investing in AI over the past two years and said the cable would support those efforts.

The firm said it planned to spend up to $65bn on AI infrastructure this year, more than analysts had expected.

It said some of that funding would go into a new division to develop a platform for AI-powered humanoid robots.

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