Google announces new underwater internet cable network to connect US, UK, Spain

It will be Google's first subsea cable route to the U.K. and first-ever route to Spain

Google on Tuesday announced a new underwater internet cable network to connect the U.S., U.K. and Spain, according to a blog post.

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The cable, called the Grace Hopper, named after American computer scientist Grace Brewster Murray Hopper, will become one of Google's four privately funded subsea cables.

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It will mark the tech giant's first-ever route to Spain, Google Global Network Vice President Bikash Koley wrote.

The cable will bring "increasing capacity on this busy global crossroads" and help power "Google services like Meet, Gmail and Google Cloud," Koley wrote.

The Grace Hopper will have 16 fiber pairs, or 32 fibers, which Koley describes as "a significant upgrade to the internet infrastructure connecting the U.S. with Europe."

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It will also be the first subsea cable to use novel optical fiber switching technology aimed at improving internet traffic and fixing outages.

Grace Hopper subsea internet cable (Google blog)

Google and other tech giants, including Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, have been investing for years n subsea cables, which transport 98 percent of international internet traffic, according to Google's blog post.

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Google made its first investment in a subsea cable in 2010 and launched its first privately funded subsea cable in 2019.

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