Google and Facebook are partnering up to deploy a 120 Terabits per second (Tbps) submarine cable that will stretch from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.
The third tech company involved in the ambitious project is a subsidiary of China Soft Power Technology, dubbed Pacific Light Data Communication.
As the new 12,800 km (7,954-mile) cable is installed and working, it will rank as the highest-capacity trans-Pacific cable to date. Previously, the biggest capacity title went to the FASTER cable, a project where Google was also present.
Rumors about the project surfaced earlier this year, and the purported investment ranked as high as $400 million. At the time, neither Facebook, nor Google had confirmed involvement in the Pacific Light Cable project.
Breaking down the connection itself, users should know that the cable features five fiber pairs, and each of the pairs can hold up to 24 Tbps of bandwidth.
According to insiders familiar with the matter, all companies involved in the project will place their own portion of the cable, meaning that Google itself will deploy its own fiber pair in order to make sure that its own traffic stays away from privy eyes.
So far, Google has stakes in no less than five submarine cables, making the Pacific Light Cable the sixth infrastructure of its kind. The other five are FASTER, MONET, SJC, Tannat and Unity.
At the time, FASTER was especially important to Google as its dedicated cable allows a much smoother experience for enterprise clients that are tapping into the Google Cloud Platform. Google's Cloud expansion in East Asia was much easier thanks to the high-speed submarine cable.
Some might raise their eyebrows upon hearing that competitors such as Facebook and Google are best buddies for the project, but such massive projects often ask for companies to set aside their rivalries.
Microsoft and Facebook recently inked a partnership for the building of a trans-Atlantic cable, estimated to carry 160 Tbps. Despite the fact that the submarine Atlantic cable is faster than the Pacific one, it should be noted that is also 50 percent shorter.
Amazon is also tinkering with the idea of installing its own submarine cables, but the company seems to want to do it all by itself.
Google affirms that the main purpose of the new cable is to deliver greater bandwidth and lower latency to its APAC region customers, something that will automatically apply to Facebook's customers.
The Pacific Light Cable Network should be ready to transmit data at high-speeds sometime in 2018.
