Google building first Africa-Australia subsea cable

Google plans to build its first subsea fiber-optic cable, “Umoja,” connecting Africa and Australia.

This initiative aims to improve connectivity amid recent outages in Africa caused by faulty undersea cables.

The cable will run from Kenya through several countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, ending in South Africa, where Google has an operational data centre in Johannesburg.

Google confirmed that the terrestrial segment of the route is complete, in partnership with Liquid Intelligent Technologies.

Construction of the cable across the Indian Ocean to Perth is currently ongoing, but no completion date has been specified.

According to Brian Quigley, Google Cloud’s VP for global network infrastructure, Umoja will enhance reliable connections for African nations.

It is essential to develop a distinct route to mitigate the high-impact outages that have historically plagued the region.

Big Tech firms like Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft increasingly invest in global submarine cable infrastructure to improve service quality.

The existing closest route is the Oman Australia Cable, which began operations in 2022.

Google has previously invested in other major cabling projects, such as the Equiano cable linking Portugal with Nigeria and South Africa.

While no specific timeline for completion has been provided, typical submarine cable builds can take around three years, so Umoja may launch by 2026.