Meta announces submarine cable plan 'Project Waterworth', the world's longest undersea cable project, connecting five continents with 50,000 km of cable
On February 14, 2025 local time, Meta announced Project Waterworth, the most ambitious submarine cable project to date. Project Waterworth will be the longest submarine cable in the world, spanning five major continents and stretching 50,000 km, longer than the circumference of the Earth.
Unlocking global AI potential with next-generation subsea infrastructure - Engineering at Meta
Meta confirms 'Project Waterworth,' a global subsea cable project spanning 50,000 kilometers | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/14/meta-confirms-project-waterworth-a-global-subsea-cable-project-spanning-50000km/
Project Waterworth is a subsea cable designed to bring industry-leading connectivity to the US, India, Brazil, South Africa and other key regions, where it will 'strengthen economic cooperation, promote digital inclusion and unlock opportunities for technology development,' Meta explained. For example, India is already seeing significant growth and investment in digital infrastructure, and Project Waterworth can accelerate this progress and support India's ambitious plans to boost its digital economy.
Subsea cables like Project Waterworth are the backbone of the world's digital infrastructure, enabling seamless digital communications, video experiences, online transactions and more, accounting for more than 95% of intercontinental traffic that crosses the world's oceans. Project Waterworth aims to enhance the scale and reliability of digital communications by laying three undersea cables with the abundant, high-speed connections needed to power AI innovation around the world.
The planned route for Project Waterworth's undersea cable is as follows, connecting the United States, Brazil, South Africa, India, etc.
Meta has been working with various partners to drive infrastructure innovation for the past 10 years and has laid more than 20 submarine cables to date. While submarine cables generally use 8 to 16 fiber pairs, Meta has a track record of laying submarine cables using an industry-leading 24 fiber pairs.
Project Waterworth will continue to improve its engineering design to maintain the cable's durability, allowing it to build the world's longest 24-core fiber optic cable project and increase its overall deployment speed. In addition, it will deploy the first routing of its kind for fiber optic cables, maximizing the use of submarine cables laid in deep waters up to 7,000 meters. In addition, in areas with high risk of faults, such as shallow waters near the coast, enhanced burial techniques will be used to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards.
Investigators suspect that the Chinese vessel Yipeng 3 intentionally dragged its anchor for more than 160 km to cut undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, possibly on Russian orders - GIGAZINE
Project Waterworth aims to unleash the potential of AI by laying the next generation of high-speed undersea cables, a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year project.
Meta said, 'AI is revolutionizing every aspect of life, from how we interact with each other to how we think about infrastructure. Meta is at the forefront of building these transformative technologies, and as AI continues to transform industries and societies around the world, it's clear that capacity, resilience and global reach are more important than ever to support key infrastructure. Project Waterworth can help make the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work.'
Prior to the announcement of Project Waterworth, President Donald Trump held a summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launched an initiative called the '21st Century U.S.-India Compact (Advancing Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce and Technology Opportunities).' This included the following statement: 'To help strengthen connectivity in the Indian Ocean, the leaders welcomed Meta's announcement of a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year investment in a submarine cable project that will begin construction this year.'
United States-India Joint Leaders' Statement – The White House
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/02/united-states-india-joint-leaders-statement/
According to telecommunications market research company TeleGeography , Meta is involved in 16 existing submarine cable networks, including the 2Africa submarine cable that encircles the African continent. However, Project Waterworth will be Meta's first fully self-led submarine cable project, and there are routes that Meta will own solely. It has also been pointed out that Meta's presence could increase dramatically, as major technology companies involved in laying submarine cables, such as Amazon and Microsoft, do not own 'solely owned routes.'
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