Meta announced what it’s calling its the most ambitious subsea cable endeavor yet: Project Waterworth. Once complete, the project will reach five major continents and span more than 50,000 kilometers (about 31,000 miles), which is longer than the Earth’s circumference. Once complete, it will be the world’s longest subsea cable project using the highest-capacity technology available.
Project Waterworth will bring connectivity to the U.S., India, Brazil, South Africa, and other regions. Meta said the project will enable greater economic cooperation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions.
“Subsea cables projects, such as Project Waterworth, are the backbone of global digital infrastructure, accounting for more than 95% of intercontinental traffic across the world’s oceans to seamlessly enable digital communication, video experiences, online transactions, and more. Project Waterworth will be a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world,” the company wrote in an announcement.
Over the past decade, Meta has helped develop more than 20 subsea cables. This includes multiple deployments of subsea cables of 24 fiber pairs – compared to the typical 8 to 16 fiber pairs of other new systems.
With Project Waterworth, Meta said it will continue to advance engineering design to maintain cable resilience, enabling it to build the longest 24 fiber pair cable project in the world and enhance overall speed of deployment. The social media company is also deploying “first-of-its-kind” routing, maximizing the cable laid in deep water — at depths up to 7,000 meters — and using enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards.