October 25th, 2023
Via Australia’s Financial Review, a report that Google signed a $102m Aussie-US deal to run internet cables to Pacific islands:
Alphabet’s Google will run undersea cables powering internet access to at least eight Pacific island nations under a joint US-Australian deal set to be announced on Wednesday, according to a US official.
The deal will expand an existing commercial project by Google in the region to the nations of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Set to be announced during an official White House visit by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the previously unreported deal involves contributions from both governments.
Canberra will contribute $US50 million ($78.9 million) and Washington is adding another $US15 million, according to a senior administration official.
The tiny and sometimes isolated nations of the Pacific have become an area of intense focus in recent years, with both China and the United States courting them with infrastructure development and military partnerships.
President Joe Biden has also pushed for US dominance in telecommunications services, seeing the industry as a key national security issue given the control it affords over information flows worldwide.
Google is currently working on a fiber-optic cable that links Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by China, with the Philippines and the United States.
As part of the Pacific islands project, the United States will work with the countries on cybersecurity resilience, helping them back up key information to global cloud networks, according to the official.
Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.