As artificial intelligence (AI) is fast becoming the reality of modern life and almost every government, especially the U.S. and China, are dumping trillions of dollars into its future development, big tech companies like Google and Meta among others, are all planning to build underwater cables.
Tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has sought to extend its presence in technology beyond social media, including AI and the infrastructure, supporting it and has announced plans to build a 31,000 mile subsea cable across the world for connectivity, Project Waterworth — connecting the U.S., India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions —will be the world’s longest underwater cable project when completed.
In India, it’ll potentially pit the bulge-bracket technology bellwethers against domestic data incumbents like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications amid a data center boom.
Submarine cables support more than 95% of intercontinental internet traffic. “Project Waterworth, a multibillion-dollar project, to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high-speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world,” the company said in a post about the undertaking last month. The project was first reported last autumn by entrepreneur Sunil Tagare.
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The new undersea network will use a cable architecture with 24 fiber pairs and routing designed to maximize deep-water routing, reaching up to 7,000 meters. Meta claims to have improved its burial techniques in high-risk areas, such as shallow near-shore waters, to reduce the risk of damage from ship anchors and other external factors.
Meta’s ecosystem, which includes services such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, by some accounts comprises as much as 10% of fixed traffic and 22% of mobile traffic globally. Over the past decade, the company has developed more than 20 undersea cables in collaboration with various partners. Waterworth would be the first project to be fully owned by the company.
World’s longest undersea cable
Meta will build the world’s longest undersea cable, providing internet connectivity on five continents, with landing points in the United States, India, Brazil, and South Africa, supporting more than 95 percent of intercontinental internet traffic. Project Waterworth, a multibillion-dollar, multiyear investment, aims to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high-speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world, according to the company.
The interoceanic cable will be longer than the circumference of Earth, making it the longest in the world, the company noted. The company suggests that the construction of this network will bring significant opportunities in the AI space, particularly in the Indian market.
In February, President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a joint statement on cooperation between the two countries. The document includes commitments on undersea technologies and mentions Project Waterworth.
“Supporting greater Indian Ocean connectivity, the leaders also welcomed Meta’s announcement of a multibillion, multiyear investment in an undersea cable project that will begin work this year and ultimately stretch over 50,000 km to connect five continents and strengthen global digital highways in the Indian Ocean region and beyond,” the statement released by the White House said.
Although submarine cables aren’t new and have been established since August 1850, when the first line was laid across the English Channel, using the converted tugboat “Goliath,” a simple copper wire coated in gutta-percha, without any other protection. Then, the first attempt at laying a transatlantic telegraph cable was promoted by Cyrus West Field, who persuaded British industrialists to fund and lay one in 1858— but Meta’s 31,000-mile-long submarine cable crisscrossing the entire globe is unprecedented.
Environmental challenges
The moot question is: Is the big tech harming the environment in the name of innovation and what could be done to protect natural resources when the market for high-speed global connectivity is growing fast, urging enterprises to shift data centers locally for increased sovereignty and security.
Submarine data cables like those from Meta and Google use electricity from shore to power repeaters that amplify signals. The amount of power available to repeaters affects the speed at which the cable can transmit data.
The voltage passed down the cable is often anywhere from 3,000 VDC (voltage of direct current) to 15,000 VDC at a current of up to 1,100 mA (milliampere), with the current increasing with decreasing voltage; the current at 10,000 VDC is up to 1,650 mA. Hence the total amount of power sent into the cable is often up to 16.5 kW.
A submarine data cable typically consumes relatively low amounts of energy, primarily used to power the optical amplifiers located along the cable at regular intervals, with power supplied from both ends of the cable through specialized “power feeding equipment” and utilizing high voltage (around 20 kV) to minimize power loss over long distances; the exact energy consumption depends on the cable length, data capacity, and technology used, but is generally considered quite efficient compared to other data transmission methods.
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Although, the promoters of the project have claimed that only green energy would be used to energize this cable — it would really depend on the cable length, as long cables generally require more power due to increased signal attenuation, data capacity, since higher data transmission demands may require more power to operate amplifiers at higher capacity and technology advancements, as newer cable designs with improved amplifier technology can consume less power per bit of data transmitted.
But, the so-called green energy is most probably hydropower that displaces millions of people and submerges huge amounts of forests, causing global warming and generating carbon dioxide and methane in their reservoirs — two fatal greenhouse gasses.
Repeaters are powered by a constant direct current passed down the conductor near the center of the cable, so all repeaters in a cable are in series. Power feed equipment (PFE) is installed at the terminal stations. Typically, both ends share the current generation with one end providing a positive voltage and the other, a negative voltage point that exists roughly halfway along the cable under normal operation. The amplifiers or repeaters derive their power from the potential difference across them. The voltage passed down the cable is often anywhere from 3,000 VDC to 15,000 VDC at a current of up to 1,100 mA, with the current increasing with decreasing voltage; the current at 10,000 VDC is up to 1,650 mA. Hence the total amount of power sent into the cable is often up to 16.5 kW.
The optic fiber used in undersea cables is chosen for its exceptional clarity, permitting runs of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) between repeaters to minimize the number of amplifiers and the distortion they cause. Unrepeated cables are cheaper than repeated cables and their maximum transmission distance is limited, although this has increased over the years; in 2014 unrepeated cables of up to 240 miles (380 kilometers) in length were in service; however, these require unpowered repeaters to be positioned every 62 miles.
Data sovereignty is a very real issue these days and may result in training data having to be replicated in different countries because there may be local data included in the mix. The highly granular national boundaries in Europe and Asia will make this more obvious.
Effects on marine life
As far as its interaction with marine life is concerned, no incident of any marine life like shark or whale destroying submarine cable is reported after mid-1980s, but how these cables, which are although very thin: the optic fiber cable being just as human as human hair, with protective sheath, altogether being 50 mm, that would be stuck to the ocean floor, how would it affect the marine life is still not clear, although marine scientists believe we need a greater understanding of how electromagnetic fields (EMF) generated by submarine power cables might affect some of these delicate creatures, many of which rely on their own internal sense of magnetic north to navigate or use electric fields to help them hunt. This mega cable certainly poses a threat to life underwater, one of the last spots on Earth largely untouched by humans.
This would be a telecommunications cable, laid on the surface of the seabed where they cross deep seas, aiming to provide the information pathways for more than 95% of international data. And offshore wind and hydrokinetic power plants also rely on submarine cables. Over the past few decades, as renewable energy projects proliferate, researchers have begun studying their environmental effects.
For most of its journey along the ocean floor, a telecommunications cable is about as wide as a garden hose, its digital data-carrying filaments no larger in diameter than a human hair. Power cables are generally larger in size (between 7-30 cm/2.75-12in) and are sheathed in a few layers of metal for enhanced protection. Subsea cables are carefully routed to avoid hazards that could damage them, such as earthquakes and underwater landslides. To minimize any accidental damage that may occur in shallower waters (for example, damage caused by human activities such as fishing, ocean trawling and anchoring), cables must be buried below the seafloor.
In shallower water, boats may be prohibited from coming near cables, which can result in healthier fish stocks.
“During subsea installation, companies will try to bury a power cable beneath the sediment to protect it,” says Bastien Taormina, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in Bergen. “This has a much bigger impact on the surrounding habitat.” Taormina is the lead author of an oft-cited study on the effects of artificial structures on marine ecosystems, published in the Journal of Environmental Management. Over a span of five years, he and his team studied the submarine power cable of a tidal energy test, taking pictures of species that colonised the cable and associated structures.
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Installation of a cable disturbs the surrounding seabed. Somewhat paradoxically, that can lead to greater initial biodiversity, says Taormina. “Opportunistic species will survive, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good ecosystem, because these species, while diverse, won’t stick around.” This phenomenon is what’s known as ecological succession: the process by which communities gradually replace one another until a “climax community” – such as a mature coral reef – is reached, or until a disturbance, like a fire (or in this case an electrified submarine cable), occurs.
Laying this mega submarine cable on the ocean floor across the world by Meta will surely make the mega-rich CEO and founder of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, richer but would certainly make the world poor by draining its already depleting natural resources a bit more.