Google's new subsea cable to link US, United Kingdom and Spain

Alphabet’s Google has commissioned a new subsea cable, which it says will be one of the first new fiber lines linking the US and the UK since 2003 and further entrenches the tech giant in global internet infrastructure.

The cable, named Grace Hopper after the computer scientist, will also connect to Spain, becoming the first Google fiber line to land there, the company said in a statement. It joins existing Google subsea cables including Google’s Curie, which runs from the US to Chile, and Dunant, which links the US to France, and Equi­ano.The Mountain View, California-based company expects to complete the project in 2022. A steady stream of trans-ocean cables is being announced by tech giants; Facebook joined forces with telecom carriers to better connect Africa in May.

“Once commissioned, the Grace Hopper cable will be one of the first new cables to connect the US and UK since 2003, increasing capacity on this busy global crossroads and pow­ering Google services like Meet, Gmail and Google Cloud,” said Bikash Koley, vice-president of Google Global Network, in a blogpost.