Companies have typically pooled their resources to collaborate on undersea cable projects, like a freeway for them all to share. “People think that data is in the cloud, but it’s not,” said Jayne Stowell, who oversees construction of Google’s undersea cable projects. Countries view the undersea cables as critical infrastructure and the projects have been flash points in geopolitical disputes. “It really is management of a very complex multidimensional chess board,” said Ms. Stowell of Google, who wears an undersea cable as a necklace. Demand for undersea cables will only grow as more businesses rely on cloud computing services.

Source: New York Times March 11, 2019 01:52 UTC