Google announces 'America-India Connect' initiative to connect three submarine cables to India

Google has invested in approximately 20 submarine cables around the world, and has announced that it will work on the 'America-India Connect' initiative, which will lay three new submarine cables to increase the number of routes connecting the United States and India.

America-India Connect infrastructure connects four continents | Google Cloud Blog

The submarine cables connecting the United States and India include the 'Sol' cable, which connects Florida, USA, with Spain, the 'Blue' cable, which runs through Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to Israel, and the 'Raman' cable, which runs from Jordan through the Red Sea to Mumbai on the west coast of India.

The 'America-India Connect' initiative plans to lay three cables, indicated by dotted lines in the diagram below.

One route will connect Cape Town, South Africa, to Chennai and Visakhapatnam on the east coast of India. This will combine with Nuvem, which runs from South Carolina in the US to Portugal via Bermuda and the Azores, and Equiano, which runs from Portugal along the west coast of Africa to South Africa, to form a redundant, high-capacity route from the east coast of the US to Visakhapatnam.

The other cable will connect Visakhapatnam to Singapore, which, combined with the Bosun cable connecting Singapore to Australia and the Tabua cable connecting Australia to the US West Coast, will form a route across the South Pacific connecting the US and India.

These two routes will establish Visakhapatnam as a new 'international submarine gateway' alongside Mumbai and Chennai, boosting India's digital resilience and improving its economic security, Google said.

A third cable is also planned, connecting Mumbai on the west coast of India with Mandurah on the west coast of Australia. Mandurah is a stopover on the TalayLink, which connects southern Thailand to the east coast of Australia. This will form a new route connecting India and the US, in conjunction with the Honomoana, which runs parallel to the Tabua cable and connects the east coast of Australia with the west coast of the US via French Polynesia.

Regarding this initiative, Google stated, 'Infrastructure is the foundation for preventing a digital divide from becoming an AI divide,' and stated its commitment to working with governments to help people access the digital skills they need to seize new opportunities.