Tech giants Google and Facebook unveiled Monday a joint plan to lay a new undersea internet cable linking Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia.
The two companies said in two separate statements that the cable project, called "Apricot", will extend about 12,000 kilometers and will be operational in 2024 in the event of obtaining regulatory approvals.
Facebook's director of engineering, Niko Rohri, said the project, announced by the two US companies and regional and global partners, "will provide much-needed internet capacity, abundance, and reliability to expand communications in the Asia-Pacific region."
"Apricot cable forms part of our ongoing efforts to expand our global network infrastructure and better serve the more than 3.5 billion people around the world who use our services every month," he added.
