Google built the first submarine fiber optic cable connecting Africa and Australia

Google, part of Alphabet Inc., is building the first undersea fiber optic cable connecting directly between Africa and Australia. This will greatly improve the quality of internet access in one of the world’s least connected regions.

This cable route is called Umoja, built after Google ‘s Equiano cable (the cable connecting Africa to Europe). According to Google’s blog post on Thursday, Umoja will start from Kenya, travel overland through Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa before crossing the sea to Australia.

This new infrastructure will significantly improve internet coverage in Africa, which has suffered frequent problems due to damaged fiber optic cables this year. Africa has relatively few submarine cable connections and limited land-based infrastructure, making rerouting internet traffic difficult.

This week, US President Joe Biden and Kenyan President William Ruto are meeting in Washington for a state visit aimed at strengthening US ties with Africa. Africa is emerging as a new arena in the competition for global influence in technology and connectivity. Microsoft also said this week that it plans to build a $1 billion data center powered by geothermal heat in Kenya, part of a multi-year plan to significantly increase cloud computing capacity in the East. Fly.

“Access to the latest technology, supported by a reliable and resilient digital infrastructure, is critical to promoting economic opportunity,” said Ms. Meg Whitman, US Ambassador to the U.S. Kenya and former CEO of eBay, said. “This is an important milestone for Kenya’s digital transformation journey.”

Umoja’s overland cable was built in partnership with Liquid Technologies to create a highly scalable route across Africa, Google said, including access points that allow other countries to take advantage this network.