Jan. 11 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department on Thursday welcomed the news from Google and Chile’s government that the first-ever undersea digital cable connection between Chile to Australia will be completed by 2026.
It will be routed through French Polynesia.
“The Humboldt subsea cable route is an example of a commercially viable, multi-stakeholder approach to trusted information and communications technology development that will create new economic opportunities in Chile and beyond,” State Department officials said in a statement. “These undersea cables, paired with secure 5G wireless terrestrial networks, will accelerate South America and the Pacific Island nations’ digital connectivity and integration with the global economy.”
Google said Thursday the direct fiber-optic network link between South America and the Asia-Pacific region will “strengthen the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity across the Pacific by interconnecting the cables that comprise the South Pacific Connect Initiative and adding geographically diverse cable investments that link French Polynesia and Chile.”
Chile Transportation and Telecommunications Minister Carlos Munoz said in a statement, “These are projects that create employment and later, when they become a reality, improve the working conditions of thousands of people, in addition to placing Chile as a leader in the region and strengthening its position as the gateway from South America to the digital world.”
Google said this project is the newest of several existing digital infrastructure projects throughout Latin America.
They include the Google data center in Quilicura that powers Google services, the Google Cloud region in Santiago that supports customers throughout Latin America, the cross-Andes terrestrial connectivity between Chile and Argentina, and the Curie subsea cable linking Chile, Panama, and the West Coast of the United States.
By improving international connectivity, Google said, subsea cables help to drive economic growth.
Patricio Rey Sommer, general manager of the Chilean state-owned infrastructure company Desarrollo País, said in a statement, “This marks a significant milestone for the flagship project, the Humboldt submarine cable. After years of dedicated work, we are now entering the materialization phase.”
