Meta unveils plan for ambitious five-continent-spanning subsea cable project

Meta is embarking on a quest to build a record-breaking subsea cable that will stretch across five continents.

The tech giant announced its plan, which it dubbed Project Waterworth, in a Feb. 14 blog post. Meta said the cable will run between the US, South Africa, India, and Brazil—among other regions—and span 50,000 km once completed. (That’s a little more than 164 million Subway footlong sandwiches, or longer than Earth’s circumference.)

Meta claims it will be able to lay its Project Waterworth subsea cable at depths of up to 7,000 meters and that it will tap “enhanced” burial techniques in high-risk fault areas to mitigate the risk of damage to the infrastructure. The company claims that the finished product would be the world’s longest 24-fiber pair cable project.

Lost at subsea. Meta says Project Waterworth will be a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment. While the company didn’t go into detail around how exactly the cable will be used, it noted that subsea cables like its newly announced venture can help “enable digital communication, video experiences, online transactions, and more.” It added that the project would help to provide the high-speed connectivity needed to propel AI innovation worldwide.

“With Project Waterworth, we can help ensure that the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work,” the tech giant wrote in its blog post.

The news of the ambitious project comes as hyperscalers continue to pour into the subsea cable infrastructure space. Meta in its blog post says it has developed more than 20 subsea cables. According to telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography, which tracks publicly announced submarine cables, Google has partial and sole ownership of more than 30 submarine cables. Meanwhile, Amazon reportedly has partial ownership or is a major capacity buyer for five submarine cables.

The announcement also comes as Meta continues to go all in on AI. In a January Facebook post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that 2025 would be a “defining year for AI” and that the tech company plans to invest between $60 and $65 billion in capital expenditures this year.

“This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Let’s go build!”