Meta is moving deeper into the physical infrastructure behind the internet. Its Project Waterworth is planned as a 50,000-kilometer undersea cable system connecting five continents, with landing points in India, the United States, Brazil, South Africa, and other strategic locations.
The company says the system will strengthen the scale and reliability of the world’s digital highways. It also frames the project as a foundation for artificial intelligence, a sign that the next phase of AI competition is not only about models and apps, but also about the networks that carry data between continents.
A longer route for global connectivity
According to Meta, the interoceanic cable will be longer than the circumference of Earth, making it the longest in the world. The company has presented Waterworth as a multibillion dollar, multiyear investment designed to open three new oceanic corridors.
That matters because submarine cables support more than 95 percent of intercontinental internet traffic. For most users, the internet feels wireless because phones, laptops, and home routers connect without visible cables. But across oceans, the core of global connectivity still depends on physical lines placed under the sea.
Project Waterworth is therefore not a side project for Meta. It is part of the infrastructure layer beneath services such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta’s ecosystem, by some accounts, comprises as much as 10 percent of fixed traffic and 22 percent of mobile traffic globally.
For a company with that level of traffic, owning more of the network can mean more direct influence over how its services are supported. The source article says Meta seeks to strengthen control over the management of its services and guarantee the necessary infrastructure for the development of its products, especially those based in artificial intelligence.
Why India is central to the plan
India is one of the named landing points for Project Waterworth and is presented by Meta as a particularly important market for the cable’s AI ambitions. The company says the project can bring significant opportunities in the AI space, particularly in the Indian market.
Meta’s post says India has already seen significant growth and investment in digital infrastructure. Waterworth, according to that post, is meant to help accelerate that progress and support the country’s plans for its digital economy.
The project has also appeared in diplomatic language. Last week, US president Donald Trump and India prime minister Shri Narendra Modi issued a joint statement on cooperation between the two countries. The document includes commitments on undersea technologies and mentions Project Waterworth.
The White House statement said the leaders welcomed Meta’s announcement of a multibillion, multiyear investment in an undersea cable project that will begin work this year and ultimately stretch over 50,000 km to connect five continents and strengthen global digital highways in the Indian Ocean region and beyond.
The engineering focus is resilience
Meta says the new undersea network will use a cable architecture with 24 fiber pairs. Its routing is designed to maximize deep-water routing, reaching up to 7,000 meters.
The company also says it has improved burial techniques in high-risk areas, including shallow near-shore waters. The goal is to reduce the risk of damage from ship anchors and other external factors.
Those details point to a practical challenge with undersea infrastructure: the network has to be both high-capacity and durable. A cable that spans oceans must be planned not only for distance, but also for the environments where damage is more likely.
Waterworth’s deep-water routing and burial approach show that reliability is part of the project’s pitch. Meta is not just announcing a long cable. It is emphasizing a system intended to support heavy, strategic traffic across multiple continents.
How Meta compares with other tech giants
Meta has developed more than 20 undersea cables over the past decade in collaboration with various partners. Waterworth would be different because it would be the first project to be fully owned by the company.
That would place Meta in more direct competition with Google in undersea infrastructure. According to the specialist firm TeleGeography, Google has around 33 undersea cable routes, some of them exclusively owned.
Other major technology companies are also active in this sector. Amazon and Microsoft are investing as well, although the source article says they only own shared interests or acquire capacity on existing cables.
The direction is clear: the largest technology companies are treating undersea cables as strategic assets. For Meta, Waterworth would tie together global connectivity, control over service delivery, and the infrastructure requirements of AI products.
The bigger picture for AI infrastructure
Project Waterworth shows how AI competition extends beyond software. Meta’s own description connects the cable to abundant, high-speed connectivity needed to drive AI innovation around the world.
That does not mean the cable is only about AI. It is also about internet connectivity, service reliability, and the movement of traffic across five continents. But AI gives the project a sharper strategic frame because Meta is explicitly linking the network to the future development of its products.
If completed as described, Waterworth would become a major piece of global digital infrastructure. It would also mark a shift for Meta from partnering on more than 20 undersea cables to fully owning a project presented as the world’s longest.