Google plans three new subsea cables to support Indian AI hub

Details: John Tanner; Category: Optical & Fixed Networks; 19 February 2026; 1434 views

Google Cloud announced on Thursday that it will build three new subsea cables connecting India to the US via South Africa, Singapore and Australia as part of its grand plan to establish an AI hub in India.

Billed as the America-India Connect initiative, the project includes a direct fibre-optic subsea cable linking Visakhapatnam (a.k.a. Vizag) and Chennai on India’s east coast to South Africa. Google Cloud said the new route will combine with its Equiano and Nuvem subsea cable systems to create a redundant high-capacity route that connects the US east coast around Africa to Vizag.

Google will also build a subsea cable linking Vizag and Singapore, which will be combined with Google’s Bosun and Tabua subsea cable systems to create a South Pacific route connecting the US west coast to Vizag via Australia.

Finally, Google Cloud will also build a direct link between Mumbai and Western Australia, which will be combined with its the TalayLink and Honomoana subsea cable systems to create a South Pacific route connecting the US west coast around Australia to Mumbai. Google said the new route will also complement its Blue, Raman, and Sol subsea cables that form a data corridor from the US east coast through the Red Sea to Mumbai.

Brian Quigley, VP of global network infrastructure at Google Cloud, said in a blog post that Google will build the new cable systems in collaboration with local partners.

“These investments will establish Vizag as a major international subsea gateway, adding vital diversity from existing landings in Mumbai and Chennai,” Quigley said. “For a nation of more than 1 billion people, this will increase the resilience of India’s digital backbone and improve economic security.”

Quigley said the America-India Connect is anchored by its partnership with Indian telco Bharti Airtel to invest US$15 billion in Google’s first AI hub and gigawatt-scale data centre in India.

Under that agreement – announced in October 2025 – Airtel and Google will jointly establish a purpose-built gigawatt data centre in Vizag between 2026 and 2030 to support AI workloads in India. The partnership also calls for Airtel to construct a new cable landing station in Vizag to host new international subsea cables, potentially including Meta's Project Waterworth, a global subsea system that includes landing points in Visakhapatnam and Mumbai.

Quigley said that America-India Connect will provide India with the reliable international connectivity it needs to not only support escalating demand for AI, but also prevent the digital divide from becoming an “AI divide”.

“With greater access to digital services, individuals can develop new skills, and businesses and public sector organizations can better serve their communities — helping prevent the AI divide from taking root,” he said.

Earlier this week, Microsoft also talked up its plans to narrow the “AI divide” at the India AI Impact Summit, saying it remains on track to invest US$50 billion by 2030 to expand access to AI across emerging markets in the Global South. Microsoft said that AI must be distributed more widely if developing economies are to fully benefit from the technology, noting that the Global North uses AI two times more AI than the Global South.

Meanwhile, Indian conglomerate Adani Group unveiled plans this week to invest US$100 billion in renewable energy-backed, AI-ready data centres by 2035, more than doubling its current capacity in its bid to position India as a global AI infrastructure hub.

AdaniConnex, Adani’s joint venture with US-based EdgeConneX, aims to expand its total data centre capacity in India to 5GW. That includes a partnership with Microsoft to establish a gigawatt-scale AI data centre campus in Vizag. AdaniConnex is also partnering with Google and Airtel to build their Vizag data centre.