Amongst all the flowers and cards that were sent around the world on Valentine’s Day, Meta took their own next steps towards a greater connection too.

The global company that owns Facebook, announced Project Waterworth on February 14th and a plan to lay a subsea cable of over 50,000 kilometers that improves connectivity between five continents: North America (of course) as well as South America, Africa, South Asia and Australasia.

The project is also bringing relations between North America and India closer, as they work together as a result.

The big ol’ romantics.

With key points in Brazil, India, South Africa and the U.S., Meta claim in the statement that their subsea cable – the longest one to date – will have huge benefits for the global economy and digital investment with immediate benefits across the world, not just in the West:

“Subsea cables projects, such as Project Waterworth, are the backbone of global digital infrastructure, accounting for more than 95% of intercontinental traffic across the world’s oceans to seamlessly enable digital communication, video experiences, online transactions, and more.

Project Waterworth will be a multi-billion dollar, multi-year investment to strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways by opening three new oceanic corridors with the abundant, high speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world.”

All this will be buried deep beneath our planet’s oceans.

Meta speak highly of the innovative nature of their project, which builds on their decade of subsea cable investment, and claims to lead the way in future proofing the world’s technology infrastructure:

“With Project Waterworth, we continue to advance engineering design to maintain cable resilience, enabling us to build the longest 24 fiber pair cable project in the world and enhance overall speed of deployment.

We are also deploying first-of-its-kind routing, maximizing the cable laid in deep water — at depths up to 7,000 meters — and using enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards.”

However beneficial such projects are for modern human life, however, subsea cables aren’t all sunshine and roses.

In fact, laying these cables – as you might imagine – can be highly destructive to aquatic life, with their installation and operation destroying habitats and ecosystems, as well as causing noise and water pollution in these delicate areas.

For some marine life, the electromagnetic fields of the technology we lay under and through their homes can disrupt their usual hunting and navigation processes too, with sometimes detrimental effects.

So while, yes, technology such as Meta’s subsea cable are one of the best ways for data to be transmitted without borders, the ramifications on our vital marine habitats must also be considered.

Because, without the aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity that – among other critical functions – regulate the climate, reduce carbon in our atmosphere, and provide the oxygen that we breathe, there won’t be any data to be transmitted.

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