Two current trends in geopolitics are the Rare earth and submarine cables. The first because China has the pan for the mango and are essential for the construction of today’s world. The second because that world cannot be understood without them and we are seeing that they are an element of pressure in A scenario like the Ukraine War.
Submarine cables are the perfect example of globalization, the element that allows practically all countries Let’s be interconnected and that we can enjoy telephone lines, internet or streaming systems as we do today. Our oceans are full of these cables And it is companies such as goal or Google who are investing greatly in increasing their number due to the boom of both streaming and AI.
Precisely a goal, which was already working to display a huge cable of more than 7,000 kilometers, has just announced one that will go around the world: A megacable that will interconnect more than 50,000 kilometers.
Waterworth Project: New Generation Cables
The Earth has a circumference of about 40,000 kilometers, this being a fact that helps us understand the magnitude of the infrastructure that plans to display Mark Zuckerberg’s company. In a releaseMeta has commented that this underwater cable is the most ambitious so far for its part (and by anyone, go) and that, when it has been completed, it will link the five main continents through more than 50,000 kilometers.
The name of the project is Waterworth and the idea is join the two coasts of the United States with Brazil, South Africa, India and Australia. They have not talked about numbers, but it is a multimillion -dollar investment and will be carried out in several phases over the years. To get an idea, the Google cable to join Japan and the west coast of the United States It will cost about one billion dollars.
The intention of the goal is to strengthen its position in the digital highway segment in order to boost their artificial intelligence. It is something that the company is very involved and, in this way, it will reinforce its presence in the sector. These submarine cables are composed of other cables, normally 8 or 16 fiber pairs, but there are also some with 24 pairs. Waterworth will be of this last class and will become the longest of 24 pairs.
And it is not a plan on paper: they are already working on the path that will travel the cables, with the intention of protecting them as much as possible, since some sections will be 7,000 meters deep near high risk failures.
Vital highways (such as the Ukraine War is demonstrating)
Something they are also paying attention to is the cable covering. Meta has commented that they will use improper burial techniques in the shallow areas near the coast, where ships usually damage these systems, but are also looking to protect them in the face of “other dangers”.
What other dangers? Well, we have recently seen in the Ukraine War, where Cuts have occurred in these cablessomething that has caused instability in some systems. Due to its importance, and the stage in which the cuts were given, at first it was believed that Russia and China were behindbut it seems that the explanation is another: dragged anchors that caused the cuts by error.
Be that as it may, that at first it would be thought that the cable cut was part of a pressure measure in a war scenario, it reflects the importance when protecting this type of systems. In the end, as a goal states in its statement: they are essential now, but they will be even more in the era of the AI we are entering.
Images | Goal
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