Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has announced plans to lay a massive undersea cable spanning five continents to support data transmission, including artificial intelligence development.
The project, named Project Waterworth, will extend over 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) and connect the United States, South Africa, India, Brazil, and other regions. The initiative represents a “multi-billion-dollar, multi-year investment,” Meta stated in a blog post on Friday.
Expanding Undersea Infrastructure
Global digital communication depends on a vast network of undersea cables, with approximately 1.2 million kilometers of cable already installed, according to a 2024 report by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). These conduits vary in scale, from short connections between neighboring countries to vast systems linking multiple continents.
Traditionally dominated by telecommunications companies, the subsea cable industry has seen increasing involvement from tech giants like Meta and Google. According to Telegeography research director Alan Mauldin, companies with high data demands are now choosing to invest directly in infrastructure rather than rely on third-party providers.
“At some point, when your growth is so big and your demand volumes outweigh other people’s, you’re incentivized to invest yourself, cut out the middleman,” Mauldin explained.
Meta’s Growing Investment in Subsea Cables
Project Waterworth will be Meta’s third undersea cable as a sole owner, trailing behind Google, which has invested in 16 such projects. Meta’s first independent cable, Anjana, linking the U.S. and Spain, is expected to go live this year.
Named after the late Meta employee Gary Waterworth, who previously worked for French cable-laying firm Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the new project underscores the company’s commitment to expanding global connectivity. ASN, along with U.S.-based SubCom, Japan’s NEC, and China’s HMN, is among the few firms capable of installing these high-capacity cables.
Enhancing Network Resilience
Tech companies investing in undersea cables aim not only to expand data capacity but also to increase network resilience. Mauldin emphasized that multiple cables are essential to maintaining stable connectivity.
“One new big, high-capacity cable doesn’t do you any good… You need to have three or four because if one goes down, two goes down, you can still route the traffic,” he noted.
Approximately 200 incidents of cable damage occur annually due to natural disasters such as underwater landslides and tsunamis, as well as human activities like fishing and ship anchor drags.
Additionally, undersea cables have become strategic assets in global security. NATO recently launched patrols in the Baltic Sea following suspected sabotage of telecom and power cables, incidents that experts have linked to Russia.
AI Driving Data Demand
Meta has highlighted that Project Waterworth will provide the “abundant, high-speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation.” The growing demand for artificial intelligence, particularly in training large models and processing user requests, is expected to fuel the need for increased data transmission capacity.
While the full impact of AI on subsea cable demand remains uncertain, major tech firms, including Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google- and Amazon-supported Anthropic, are poised to benefit from improved infrastructure.
With Meta and other digital giants continuing to expand their networks, the competition to control the future of global data transmission is intensifying.
( Channel TV)
