A consortium of six global companies, including Google, announced plans to lay the world’s fastest undersea cable between the United States and Japan by the end of 2016.
The trans-Pacific cable reportedly will be capable of transmitting digital data at a speed of 60 terabytes per second.
The $300 million system, called “FASTER,” will be financed jointly by California-based Google and five Asian technology companies, they announced in a press release. These include China Mobile International and the Japanese NEC Corp., which will build the system.
The cable will feature the latest optical transmission technology and will run between the U.S. West Coast and Japan. In the U.S., it will connect with hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle; in Japan, it will land in Chikura and Shima. On both ends, it’s expected to seamlessly connect with other cables to extend the data pipeline.
The agreement’s signatories say the system will provide faster transmission of digital data between two regions, which require more and more bandwidth. Construction is expected to begin immediately.
