Google’s Grace Hopper subsea cable lands in the UK

The 16-fibre pair cable will connect New York (US) to Bude (UK) and Bilbao (Spain). Grace Hopper, alongside Cuire, Dunant, Equiano and Firmina, is the latest cable to connect continents along the ocean floor with an additional layer of security beyond what’s available over the public internet. In a blog post, Google states, “We’ve worked with established channels and experts for years to ensure that Grace Hopper will be able to achieve better reliability in global communications, and free flows of data.

“Following a successful Bilbao landing earlier in September, Grace Hopper also marks our first ever Google-funded route to Spain, taking a unique path from our existing cables, such as Dunant, which connects the US and France, and Havfrue, which links the US and Denmark. The cable will use novel “fibre switching,” which allows us to better move traffic around outages for increased reliability. Once it is complete, Grace Hopper will carry traffic quickly and securely between the continents, increasing capacity and powering Google services like Meet, Gmail and Google Cloud.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new digital “normal” and Grace Hopper will connect the UK to help meet the growing demand for high-bandwidth connectivity and services. “As our first Google-funded cable to the U.K., Grace Hopper is part of our ongoing investment in the country, supporting users who rely on our products and customers using our tools to grow their business,” said Google.