Google is planning to build three underwater cables in 2019 to help expand its cloud business to new regions as it battles rivals Microsoft and Amazon .
The subsea cables will run across different routes. The first will go from Los Angeles to Chile, the second will connect the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, and the third will be from Hong Kong to Guam.
Alphabet-owned Google said it will open its Netherlands and Montreal regions in the first quarter of 2018, followed by L.A., Finland and Hong Kong.
The cables will be completed in 2019.
“Together, these investments further improve our network — the world’s largest — which by some accounts delivers 25 percent of worldwide internet traffic,” Ben Treynor Sloss, vice president of Google’s cloud platform, said in a blog post on Tuesday.
The Curie cable, named after famous scientist Marie Curie, from Chile to L.A. will allow Google to serve cloud customers across Latin America.
Havfrue, the cable running from the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, will boost capacity for North Atlantic customers. It is being developed in partnership with Facebook and will be built by TE SubCom.
The Hong Kong-Guam cable system will help Google reach customers in Australia and the Pacific region.
Building all of these cables will help Google deliver cloud services with a better experience. It means if servers in one region have a problem, then it can still service customers in those areas without taking a hit to performance.
Google now has direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction.
The U.S. search giant sees cloud as a promising new area and has been trying to aggressively expand the business to catch up to rivals Amazon and Microsoft.
