The Te Waipounamu data cable planned for Southland will establish a "multi-lane super highway" to the world, a tech pioneer says.
Datagrid chief executive Perrine Dhalluin said its planned cable would establish diverse international fibre routes connecting New Zealand to Australia.
The company will be establishing the subsea cable in conjunction with its Makarewa data centre site.
It is hoped the new cable, with a cost about $160million, will be commissioned by 2026.
The cable will span 3000km between Invercargill and Australia — connecting directly to both Melbourne and Sydney, allowing data to transfer at 120 terabites per second.
It will allow high-speed encrypted international data transfers with very little latency (delivery speed delay) and will become the South Island’s first direct international connection.
Subsea cables carry encrypted data via glass-fibre strands — each strand is about the thickness of a human hair.
New Zealand hosts three international submarine data cable connections: Spark’s NZ$1.8b Southern Cross installed in 2000; Vodafone/Telstra’s TransTasman Global, and Datagrid’s 22,000km, $500m Trans Pacific Hawaiki Nui cable, which connected to Australia and the United States in 2018.
Ms Dhalluin said the Southland connection would improve internet speed, with more than 35% improvement in latency to Australia compared to the existing international cables all landing in the North Island.
Te Waipounamu, combined with two other routes, will increase New Zealand’s data resilience as a partner with national telecommunications companies, domestic careers and international subsea cable operators connecting Auckland to Australia, strengthening New Zealand’s connectivity.
"These subsea cables are absolutely strategic for the development of New Zealand’s digital economy, and they provide the platform for further investment in AI and hi-tech advancement in New Zealand’s most critical industries," Ms Dhalluin said.
"We believe New Zealand could play a critical role in international digital technology advancements.
"New Zealand provides unique advantages such our energy mix, already approximately 87% green our political stability and transparent legal environment, and also our great research centre and top ranked universities."
Otago University acting chief digital office Wallace Chase said the university had signed a memorandum of understanding with Datagrid in 2022 to become an anchor tenant at the Makarewa datacentre.
"The connectivity provided by such a cable would be of great value to New Zealand, increasing resiliency as currently international connectivity is all serviced via Auckland."
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) communications infrastructure and trade policy director Hamish Grant-Fargie said MBIE welcomed the proposed new subsea cable capacity.
"It would provide additional route diversity and competition in a manner that is likely to have long term benefits for New Zealand businesses and households."
Animation Research Limited founder Sir Ian Taylor said it was unlikely his hi-tech virtual spectator company would use the multi-lane super highway as Covid-related lockdowns had already driven the company to use the internet differently in lieu of international travel.
However the connection would prove useful to businesses and the film industry as well as providing an alternative.
"It’s the alternative route that’s really valuable," he said.
The cables shut down the "tyranny of distance".
"The technology had always been there, we just had to use it differently."
Sir Ian said when he established his company, transferring data was like using "a dirt track to get to the highway everybody else used.
The company was able to work internationally based from Dunedin via hubs in Mumbai, Denver and London and he believed New Zealand had advanced technology compared to Australia.
He thought there was room for talks at a national level around data centre locations and the best place for them to be established.
"If it’s doable, then it beats wind farms, and solar farms. It even beats hydro for the amount of energy it can provide," he said.
- By Toni McDonald
