Google to expand cloud infrastructure with new regions, submarine cables

Google will add five regions and build three new submarine cables as it expands its infrastructure for cloud customers.

The company, which has invested US$30 billion in infrastructure over the past three years, said its Netherlands and Montreal regions will open in the first quarter of 2018, followed by Los Angeles, Finland, and Hong Kong.

Google plans to commission the three subsea cables in 2019, the internet giant said in a blog post.

Australia is set to benefit from the Hong Kong-Guam Cable system, a consortium cable interconnecting major subsea communication hubs in Asia, with multiple scalable, diverse paths to Australia.

Google said customers in Australia will experience improved capacity and latency from Australia to major hubs in Asia, along with increased capacity in Hong Kong and overall resilience in the Pacific.

NEC and RTI-C are working with Google on the HK-G cable, which is expected to go live in 2019.

The other subsea cables include: Curie, a private cable connecting Chile to Los Angeles; and Havfrue, a consortium cable connecting the United States to Denmark and Ireland.

Subsea cables form the backbone of the internet by carrying more than 90 percent of the world's data traffic.

The companies setting up the cables include TE SubCom, a unit of Switzerland-based TE Connectivity, and NEC, Google said.

The company said it has direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)