Meta has announced plans to lay over 50,000 kilometers (31,069 miles) of subsea cables spanning five continents, the world’s longest project of its kind, dubbing the effort “Project Waterworth”.
“Project Waterworth will bring industry-leading connectivity to the U.S., India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions,” Meta’s Vice President of Network Engineering Gaya Nagarajan and Global Head of Network Investments Alex-Handrah Aimé wrote in a post on February 14. “Project Waterworth will be a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment 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.”
As TechCrunch notes, the project is mentioned in a United States-India Joint Leaders’ Statement published by the White House after an Official Working Visit by Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, on February 13.
“Supporting greater Indian Ocean connectivity, the leaders also welcomed Meta’s announcement of a multi-billion, multi-year 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 reads. “India intends to invest in maintenance, repair and financing of undersea cables in the Indian Ocean, using trusted vendors.”
The Meta post states that “in India, where we’ve already seen significant growth and investment in digital infrastructure, Waterworth will help accelerate this progress and support the country’s ambitious plans for its digital economy.”
Meta highlighted their previous work on subsea cables in the post, including deploying cables with 24 fiber pairs “compared to the typical 8 to 16 fiber pairs of other new systems.” Project Waterworth, they state, will be “the longest 24 fiber pair cable project in the world.”
The project aims to span a staggering 50,000 kilometers (31,069 miles) that Meta notes is “longer than the Earth’s circumference” of 40,030 kilometers (24,873.6 miles). In comparison, the 2Africa cable consortium – a project in which Meta is also a partner – announced in 2022 that at 45,000 kilometers (27,962 miles), the 2Africa cable “will be the longest subsea cable ever deployed.”
“Meta has shown a strong desire to own more of the connectivity slice,” telecoms and technology industry analyst Paolo Pescatore told the BBC. “This is a further demonstration as it seeks to leapfrog rivals in providing users with an unique experience by tightly integrating hardware, software, platform and its growing aspirations in connectivity.” Professor Vili Lehdonvirta of the Oxford Internet Institute told the BBC that Project Waterworth also seems to be avoiding “geopolitical hotspots”.
This announcement by Meta comes after NATO’s 2024 announcement of the $2.5 million Hybrid Space/Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications (HEIST) consortium, which aims to “make the internet less vulnerable to disruption by rerouting the flow of information into space in the event that undersea cables are attacked or accidentally severed.” Some elements of HEIST are hoped to begin testing in 2025.
To that end, Meta states that they will be “deploying first-of-its-kind routing, maximizing the cable laid in deep water – at depths up to 7,000 meters [22,966 feet] – and using enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards.”
