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Content giants like Meta and Google are increasingly building their own submarine cable infrastructure, forgoing traditional partnerships with telcos
Hyperscalers like Google and Meta have long played a key role in the submarine cable industry, typically serving as major partners in cable consortiums alongside telcos and other infrastructure players.
In recent years, however, their modus operandi has changed. Today, instead of partnering with traditional carriers for cable projects, these players are increasingly building their own private cable systems.
The scale of this shift should not be underestimated. These new cable projects are some of the largest in the world, often dominating the areas in which they are deployed. This has particularly become true in the Atlantic, where hyperscalers are essentially alone in pursuing new transatlantic projects.
Here is an image, courtesy of Pioneer Consulting’s Managing Partner Gavin Tully and based on publicly available data, showing the submarine cables currently in service that are purely owned by hyperscalers.
Private hyperscaler cables ready for service in 2025 (Pioneer Consulting)
Contrast that with this image, showing the additional cables that are expected to be ready for service by 2028, and the increase in both scale of private cable deployments is plain to see.
Private hyperscaler cables estimated to be ready for service in 2028 (Pioneer Consulting)
But what does this growth mean for the submarine cable community?
For the panel speaking on the keynote stage of Submarine Networks EMEA 2025 today, this new reality does not come as a surprise.
“Demand of hyperscalers for their own use far outstrips the demand of individual carriers,” explained Owen Bryant, Head of Global Infrastructure, Vodafone. “They have the scale of demand to build in areas carriers simply can’t reach. We have to let go of the idea that the carriers will be leading the largest subsea projects.”
Indeed, Tansy McCluskie, who oversees network investments at Meta, explained this transition as simply the industry’s natural progression. In the past, Meta had leased capacity on subsea cables. Later, as the global demand increased, they become more active in the space, becoming active partners alongside telcos in subsea cable consortiums. Now, with demand soaring and predicted to grow substantially, it makes sense that Meta should build its own dedicated infrastructure.
Case in point: Meta’s Waterworth Project
The Waterworth Project, announced just last week, is an excellent example of Meta’s subsea cable ambitions.
Named for Meta’s Gary Waterworth, a giant of the submarine cable industry that sadly passed away last year, the Waterworth Project is a 50,000km subsea cable that, when completed, will be the longest in the world. The 24-fiber pair cable will travel from the US to Brazil, South Africa, India, and “other key regions”, helping to support the global growth in digital infrastructure investments in these countries.
“With Project Waterworth we can help ensure that the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work,” explained Meta in a related blog post.
For the time being, Project Waterworth is private, carrying only Meta’s data traffic, but McCluskie notes that this need not be the case forever.
“We can envisage a future where other players are allowed to be part of the system,” said McCluskie, noting that the hyperscalers’ private deployments could present opportunities for carriers further down the line.
Competition concerns
With the hyperscalers coming to dominate parts of the market, there are inevitably going to be claims that they are operating monopolistically – or, at the very least, oligopolistically.
Part of the challenge is that these new hyperscaler cables, with their enormous capacities, can swallow up a huge portion of a region’s data traffic once activated, potentially making smaller, older cables on the same route obsolete essentially overnight. As Mike Conradi, Partner at DLA Piper notes, “this is not a situation that competition law, in its current form, is particularly good at dealing with”.
“The legal framework here is filled with phrases like ‘abusing a dominant position’ or ‘distorting the market’, neither of which can be applied to the hyperscalers’ approach to the subsea industry.
In short, while these hyperscale projects are undoubtedly having a major effect on the market, they are not doing so through anticompetitive practices.
“The hyperscalers’ behaviour is not monopolistic – it’s not in their business interest to act that way,” added Leigh Frame, COO of cable builder Xtera. He added that the relatively slow deployment speed of the submarine cable industry, limited as it is by a lack of builders and cable ships, helps to keep the hyperscalers’ explosive growth in check.
A new status quo
The rise of the hyperscalers in the submarine industry has been rapid, if not quite meteoric, and it shows little sign of stopping. While the construction of major private submarine cables represents a significant shift for the industry, the consensus at Submarine Networks EMEA was that this development is merely a simple response to the ebbs and flows of supply and demand.
“It’s simply inevitable. The companies that have the largest demand have largest control of the market. That, in itself, is nothing for the industry to be concerned about,” concluded Mike Conradi, Partner at DLA Piper.
Join the submarine cable connectivity at Submarine Networks EMEA, the world’s largest submarine connectivity event, taking place this week!
