Google's new 'Apricot' subsea cable to link Southeast Asian countries

Both submarine cables will provide Asian businesses and startups with lower latency, more bandwidth, and increased resilience in their connectivity between Southeast Asia, North Asia and the United States, enabling new opportunities for people in the region.

Google on Monday announced a new subsea cable called Apricot, that it says will connect Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia. The submarine system is expected to be ready for service in 2024.

Back in March 2021, Google announced its investment in Echo, a subsea cable connecting the United States to Asia. The Echo subsea cable is expected to be ready for service in 2023.

"The Echo and Apricot cables are complementary submarine systems that will offer benefits with multiple paths in and out of Asia, including unique routes through southern Asia, ensuring a significantly higher degree of resilience for Google Cloud and digital services," Bikash Koley, VP and Head of Google Global Networking and Head of Technology and Strategy, Google Cloud for Telecommunications, wrote in a blog post.

Both submarine cables will provide Asian businesses and startups with lower latency, more bandwidth, and increased resilience in their connectivity between Southeast Asia, North Asia and the United States, enabling new opportunities for people in the region.

In addition to its 27 cloud regions and 82 zones, the search giant has invested in a total of 18 subsea cables. Google's global network of subsea cables includes Curie, Dunant, Equiano, Firmina and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like JGA, INDIGO and Havfrue.

Meanwhile, Facebook has also announced its participation in the Apricot subsea cable system. Expected to launch in 2024, the 12,000-kilometre-long Apricot cable system will have an initial design capacity of more than 190 terabits per second to meet rising data demands in the region and support existing cable systems, such as the recently announced Echo and Bifrost cable systems.

When completed, the Apricot cable system will help meet the growing demand for 4G, 5G, and broadband access in the Asia-Pacific region, Facebook said.