Google laid a giant submarine cable from New York to the UK: why is it needed

Google has completed the Grace Hopper, a giant undersea internet cable. It stretches from New York to the UK and Spain. Business Insider.

Grace Hopper began to run from New York and was brought ashore on 14 September at Bude, Cornwall, on the UK west coast. A Google spokesman said the release was originally scheduled for July this year. Another “European” end of the cable was brought ashore in Bilbao, Spain, in early September.

Google first announced its Grace Hopper submarine cable project in July 2020. The Grace Hopper now stretches nearly 6300 km across the Atlantic.

Google promises that between 340 and 350 terabytes of data per second will be transmitted over the cable, which is roughly the equivalent of 17,5 million people simultaneously streaming 4K video.

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The company said the cable uses a new technology called fiber-optic switching. It is designed to make web traffic more reliable. A Google spokesman noted that the cable should be launched in 2022.

Grace Hopper isn't the only Google cable linking the US to Europe. In February, the company announced that its Dunant cable, which connects the US and France, is ready for use.

Google is investing in submarine cable projects around the world. In August, the company announced that it had partnered with Facebook to create a new cable called Apricot. It will connect six Asian countries with a single 12 km long line.

Apricot will launch in 2024. In June, Google announced plans to run a new cable called Firmina from the US west coast to Argentina. The company already has a cable called Curie that connects the US west coast to Panama and Chile. It was connected in 2019.