A stated-owned enterprise of the Chilean government (Desarrollo Pais) has signed a connectivity partnership agreement with Google.

According to a Google translation of the press release, both parties are creating a joint venture called Humboldt Connect, which will deploy an undersea fibre optic cable that “directly connect South America with Oceania.”

Humboldt Connect is set for deployment in 2025-2026. with commercial operation slated for 2027. It will be a 14,800-kilometre (9,200-mile) submarine data cable that will connect Chile’s coastal city of Valparaíso, with Sydney, Australia through French Polynesia.

Humboldt Connect

“This project, which will connect the Valparaíso Region with Australia via more than 14,000 kilometers of cable, represents a concrete expression of how we understand Chile’s place in the 21st century: as an open, reliable country fully committed to active international integration, with a vocation to be the bridge between South America, Asia-Pacific, and Oceania,” Chile’s Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren stated.

“This infrastructure has the potential to benefit neighbouring countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and others, facilitating their access to more diversified, secure, and efficient digital routes,” added van Klaveren, adding that “we reaffirm our commitment to being a regional meeting and coordination point, promoting digital integration that is inclusive, sustainable, and oriented toward shared development.”

Desarrollo País and Google will each hold a 50-50 percent holding in the joint venture.

The Humboldt project has been a long time coming, having first been proposed back in 2016.

Between 2019 and 2020, economic, technical, and geopolitical feasibility studies were carried out, and in 2021, Chile’s Country Development Agency assumed project management and launched an international call for tender (RFP) in 2022.

It signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Google in 2023, which laid the foundation for the partnership.

Finally, in 2024, the seabed survey was completed, allowing the final route to be defined.

It should be remembered that Chile is home to one of Google’s largest data centres in Latin America.

Subsea cables

Although Google did not disclose its total investment, the Associated Press reported that Patricio Rey, general manager of local partner Desarrollo País, estimated the cable project’s value at $300 million to $550 million, with Chile contributing $25 million.

And Alphabet’s Google has invested heavily in subsea cables over the years.

This includes the ‘Dunant’ cable (named after Red Cross founder Henry Dunant) that runs from Virginia Beach in the United States to a landing station in the French west coast.

In 2024 Google confirmed it will spend $1 billion with two new subsea cables connecting the US and Japan, and a number of Pacific Island nations.