We are excited to announce our participation in the Apricot subsea cable system, together with leading regional and global partners. When completed, the project (which is still subject to regulatory approvals) will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability to expand connections in the Asia-Pacific region.
The 12,000-kilometer-long cable will connect Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore. Apricot will feature a state of the art configuration allowing flexibility in trunk and branch capacity.
Expected to launch in 2024, the Apricot cable system will have an initial design capacity of more than 190 terabits per second to meet rising data demands in the region and support existing cable systems, such as the recently announced Echo and Bifrost cable systems. The cable will help meet the growing demand for 4G, 5G, and broadband access in the region.
The Apricot cable is part of our ongoing effort to expand global network infrastructure and better serve the more than 3.5 billion people around the world who use our services every month. To accomplish this, we collaborate with partners all over the world to build subsea fiber-optic cables. Apricot is the latest example of our innovative partnership model, in which all parties benefit from developing scale infrastructure and shared technology expertise.