Google to build third private submarine cable to connect Europe and Africa for data transmission

According to foreign media reports, Google announced on the 28th that it will invest in the construction of an undersea optical cable connecting Europe and Africa. This will be the third private undersea optical cable built by Google in the world.

The cable, named Equiano, will be completed in 2021 and will be able to transmit high-speed data from Portugal to South Africa and other countries. Google said in a blog post on Friday that the fiber optic line is part of its massive investment in computing infrastructure, which has reached $47 billion in the past three years.

Google's data business is huge, requiring it to push large amounts of information across data centers around the world. Through operations like Google Cloud, Google can also handle the data needs of many other companies.

It is understood that "Equiano" is fully funded by Google and will be Google's third private submarine cable. Google's first private submarine cable "Curie" connects the United States and Chile and was completed in April this year; another private submarine cable named "Dinant" connects the United States and France and is scheduled to be opened next year. Google has invested in 14 submarine cables around the world so far.

Google said the cable uses a new data-pumping technology called fiber-level switching, designed to transmit information more economically. Earlier long-distance fiber-optic cables, which have four or six pairs of fiber lines, divide data by sending different wavelengths and colors of light to each destination. Each fiber pair can transmit data on 60 channels of different wavelengths.

Google's latest fiber-level switches use 12 or more pairs of fiber lines and use the entire line for each destination. "This fiber-level switching produces a more compact and cost-effective switching solution," Google said.

Once the cable is up and running, it should have a network capacity 20 times greater than that provided by the last cable serving the area, according to Google.