Google ‘Grace Hopper’ Subsea Cable To Link US, UK, And Spain

Google is expanding its physical links to the United Kingdom after it announced a new subsea cable that spans the Atlantic.

The ‘Grace Hopper’ cable, named after the famous computer scientist and rear admiral of the US Navy, will connect New York and Bude in Cornwall. The cable will also split off and run to Bilbao in Spain.

The new cable is Google’s fourth private submarine cable, and will satisfy the ever increasing need for additional transatlantic bandwidth.

Grace Hopper cable

Google revealed the new cable in a blog post on the matter.

“Today, 98 percent of international internet traffic is ferried around the world by subsea cables,” Google wrote. “In today’s day and age, as the ways that we work, play and connect are becoming increasingly digital, reliable connectivity is more important than ever before.”

“That’s why we’re excited to announce a new subsea cable – Grace Hopper – which will run between the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain, providing better resilience for the network that underpins Google’s consumer and enterprise products,” it said.

“Grace Hopper joins our other private subsea cables, Curie, Dunant and Equiano to connect far-flung continents along the ocean floor,” it added. “Private subsea cables allow us to plan effectively for the future capacity needs of our customers and users around the world, and add a layer of security beyond what’s available over the public internet.”

The Grace Hopper cable will be one of the first new cables to connect the US and US since 2003, and will be equipped with 16 fibre pairs (32 fibres), “a significant upgrade to the internet infrastructure connecting the US with Europe.”

Google has signed a contract with subsea cable provider, SubCom, and the project is expected to be completed in 2022.

A Google video explaining the new cable can be found here.

The first ever transatlantic telecommunications cable was built in 1858, and it connected Ireland and the US by telegraph.

Cornwall tends to the landing point for most cables connecting the UK to other parts of the world.

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