Yesterday, Google announced that it will enter into strategic cooperation with Facebook and Pacific Light Data Communication, a subsidiary of China Soft Power Technology Group (CSPT). The three parties will jointly develop a trans-Pacific submarine communications cable.
It is reported that this Trans-Pacific Optical Cable (PLCN) will be able to transmit data at a rate of up to 120 Tbps from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, China.
Brian Quigley, director of Google's submarine network infrastructure project, disclosed that the PLCN fiber optic cable will be officially put into use in 2018. The main purpose of building PLCN is to reduce the delay of Google Apps Suite G Suite and Google Cloud Platform in some cases.
From the perspective of Google, this move is more to provide basic help for Google Cloud Services. At the end of September, Google integrated various services of cloud services. First, Google for Work, Google's Cloud Platform and other Google cloud services will all be merged into one brand: "Google Cloud (Google Cloud) "Google is intended to focus technology and human resources against Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.
The Google cloud collaboration platform Google for Work has just recently been integrated into G Suite. The new G Suite suite still includes Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, Google+, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites, Admin Console, Safe. The most powerful upgrade after the rename was the addition of machine learning technology, which added Quick Access functionality to “Driveâ€, which officially said that it can save 50% of the average search time: using machine learning to analyze information entered by users before , predict the file that you want to open right away.
In fact, Google has invested a lot of funds in the construction of infrastructure such as fiber optic cables. The single fiber project includes: FASTER, Unity, SJC, Monet, and Tannat.
In addition to Google, Amazon recently announced plans to build a submarine cable linking Hawaii and Australia. In the middle of this year, Amazon AWS was affected by fiber cable accidents. Some customers have encountered connection problems with the network in the EU-WEST-1 area. Therefore, building Amazon's own submarine fiber cable to maintain AWS stability is something that Amazon is addressing.
Microsoft also recently cooperated with Facebook on the Marea cable project. Facebook and Microsoft stated in the announcement:
The “trendy†fiber optic cable laid by Microsoft and Facebook is to accelerate the development of a new generation of network infrastructure, support the development of data consumption, and the rapid growth of cloud technology and online services.
At the moment, the competition for comprehensive capabilities of the cloud, management, and terminal is becoming more and more important. The Internet giants are all working hard to build a complete cloud management end-source: cloud is a cloud service, the end is a smart terminal, and the management is linked to the “cloud†and “endâ€. Between the various devices, but also refers to the communications network. According to analysis by professionals, Microsoft has outstanding capabilities in cloud computing in general, but there is a certain gap between it and its competitors. Microsoft's investment in submarine cables clearly complements short boards. To this end, Microsoft executives mentioned:
We believe that these investments will enable customers to realize that Microsoft already has all the conditions needed to provide the most reliable, highest-accessibility and most secure cloud computing. The competition in the cloud computing and infrastructure areas will become increasingly fierce, relying solely on cloud computing or infrastructure is not enough to win in the competition, to win in the competition is the need for overall innovation and all-round delivery of value to customers.
Based on the above cases, in order to provide users and corporate customers with more stable and rapid services, it can be predicted that major Internet giants will invest more funds in the construction of optical cables.
Related Reading:
Entrepreneurial company decrypts the back-end cloud services that Google, FB and Apple are all eyeing: it can save tens of millions of startup costs
TC Disrupt Conference | "Virtual Queen" Diane Greene: How does Google Cloud get 200 million users of Evernote?