Google announces direct subsea cable link between India, U.S.

Google will work on an undersea cable project directly linking the U.S. and India, CEO Sundar Pichai announced at a news briefing on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit. This would be the second planned subsea cable system that would in and of itself link the U.S. and India, after Facebook and WhatsApp parent Meta’s Project Waterworth. 

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So far, subsea cable systems, which carry the vast majority of Internet traffic between continents, do not have a direct Indo-U.S. link, relying instead on relay points like West Asian hubs or Singapore.

A Google spokesperson did not have immediate details to provide on technical and route details of the route.

The firm also announced “Google DeepMind partnership to advance AI-powered science and education in India, and expanded workforce development efforts,” earmarking a $30 million “Google.org AI [grant] for Government Innovation Impact Challenge to support AI-powered government-to-citizen solutions,” the firm said.

In addition, 1.1 crore students at Atal Tinkering Labs around the country would have access to chatbot assistants, the firm said. It also announced the launch of Google AI Professional Certificates to help workers transition into AI-enabled workflows, in partnership with the Wadhwani Foundation. Google will also join firms like Microsoft in providing courses to Karmayogi Bharat, which provides e-learning modules for serving government employees.