Google to build its own submarine cable between the US and Europe

Google plans to build its own submarine cable between Virginia Beach and the French coast. The internet cable must connect Google’s data centers with the lowest possible latency. The cable should be operational in 2020.

Google calls the new cable Dunant and has it installed by TE SubCom. That company designs and produces the cable, and also ensures that it is placed on the seabed in the Atlantic Ocean. Google does not provide specifications about the cable and the available bandwidth.

Submarine cables are normally laid by consortia of companies or providers take capacity from an existing cable. Google wants to install the new cable in-house to achieve the lowest latency for the largest group of Google Cloud users. The search giant says it will do this by laying the cable close to existing data centers.

Google has already built its own submarine cables. It started with Alpha and Beta, two relatively short cables. At the beginning of this year, the company announced the construction of Curie, a longer proprietary cable between Los Angeles and Chile. At the same time, Google announced an investment in two other cables to be constructed by consortia. Google says it will continue to invest in such partnerships.