Meta's Project Waterworth, spanning over 50,000 km, aims to enhance global connectivity through high-capacity, resilient subsea cable infrastructure.
The engineering challenges of subsea cable installation involve meticulous planning to navigate ocean floor topography while avoiding environmental concerns.
Deep dives
The Importance of Subsea Cables
Subsea cables are essential for global communication, carrying 95% of intercontinental data traffic. These cables, often unnoticed, form the backbone of internet infrastructure, enabling high-fidelity communication across vast distances. The engineering team at Meta is dedicated to developing these critical cables, working on significant projects like Project Waterworth, which spans five continents. This project highlights the complex engineering involved and the necessity of maintaining robust connections for optimal performance.
Project Waterworth: A Landmark Initiative
Project Waterworth is set to be the longest subsea cable project, connecting the US, India, Brazil, and South Africa by creating three new ocean corridors. This innovative route circumvents known geopolitical issues and offers improved resilience to existing cable traffic, which faces risks from areas of conflict or environmental hazards. By utilizing deeper ocean pathways, the project aims to enhance reliability while maintaining necessary data capacity amidst increasing global demand. The engineers' focus on both capacity and resilience underscores the future of intercontinental communication.
Submarine Cable Engineering Challenges
The engineering and planning of subsea cables involve meticulous considerations of ocean floor topography through sophisticated mapping technologies like sonar. Engineers must navigate various challenges, including identifying safe routes while avoiding environmental sensitivities and existing underwater structures. Additionally, the physical characteristics of cables, such as their size and protective elements, demand careful engineering to withstand high pressures and potential damage from fishing or shipping activities. These challenges highlight the complexity and precision crucial for successful cable installation and longevity.
The Future of Subsea Cable Technology
Advancements in subsea cable technology continue to develop, demonstrating significant increases in capacity with the use of optical amplification and increased fiber pairs. Current projects aim to push capacities from 0.5 petabit to 1 petabit, utilizing innovative solutions like two-core fibers to maximize data transmittance. As the digital landscape evolves, staying ahead of the rising demand for high-speed internet requires consistent innovation within the subsea cable industry. This ongoing progress showcases the vital role these cables play in supporting the infrastructure necessary for an increasingly interconnected world.
To ensure that everyone has access to resilient, high-speed and low-latency connections to Meta services, no matter where in the world they are, Meta makes large-scale investments into subsea cable infrastructure. The recently announced Project Water worth will, Once complete, reach five major continents and span over 50,000 km (longer than the Earth’s circumference), making it the world’s longest subsea cable project using the highest-capacity technology available.
In this episode, host Pascal talks with another Pascal and his colleague Andy who are involved at every stage of these projects and share the surprising challenges one has to deal with when working on the largest subsea cable project in the world.
