Meta plans undersea cable to link five continents

PARIS: Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has said it will lay an undersea cable stretching across five continents to carry data, including for developing artificial intelligence.

The cable will run for more than 50,000-kms between the US, South Africa, India, Brazil and “other regions”, Meta wrote in a blog on Friday. Global digital communication relies on a vast network of undersea conduits, with roughly 1.2 million kilometres of cable already installed, according to a 2024 report by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The links can be short hops between countries or globe-spanning systems linking multiple continents. Each is made up of multiple pairs of fibre-optic cables in an armoured sheath that may be buried several metres under the sea bed for protection. Data-hungry digital giants like Meta have in recent years muscled in to the world of subsea cables that was once the province of dedicated telecoms providers.