Google’s Humboldt Cable: Bridging Chile and Australia with a Pioneering Undersea Connection
Google plans to construct a groundbreaking undersea cable, Humboldt, connecting Chile to Australia via French Polynesia, marking the first cable of its kind directly linking South America to the Asia-Pacific region, named after the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, this cable is the latest in a series of over 12 undersea cables Google has invested in over the past fifteen years.
Google’s journey with undersea cables began in 2010 with the 9656 km long Unity cable stretching across the Pacific from California to Japan, numerous other cables in the Pacific primarily connect Asia to North America, although some extend from the U.S. and Mexico coasts to various landing points in the southern continent, four years ago, Google completed its fully owned Curie cable project, linking California to Chile.
Google has not provided a completion date for the Humboldt project, the company has partnered with Desarrollo País in Chile and the French Polynesian Office of Post and Telecommunications to lay the 14,800 km cable, diverging from its recent trend of solo cable projects.
Like its other similar endeavors, Humboldt is designed to enhance global data transfer operations, working alongside Google’s other infrastructure projects, including local data centers in Chile, this initiative is part of Google’s commitment to providing customers with minimal latency while offering countries robust internet infrastructure.
Upon activation, Humboldt will boost the reliability and flexibility of digital connectivity across the Pacific by linking cables forming the “South Pacific Connect” initiative and adding geographically diverse cable investments connecting French Polynesia and Chile.
Technology companies, including Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, have also invested in various internet infrastructure programs, it’s said that this quartet, along with Google, owns or leases about half of the bandwidth capacity of undersea cables.
