Behind Google Cloud's Plan to Take AI Connectivity Global

In an effort to prevent a digital divide from becoming an AI divide, Google Cloud has set out a telco infrastructure plan that bridges four continents.

The aim is to expand AI connectivity across Asia, Africa, Australia and North America as part of a five-year US$15bn investment.

America-India Connect is the name of the programme, which will expand subsea cable systems and fibre networks linking these four continents through India.

Google is working with the India government's Karmayogi Bharat programme, which provides cloud infrastructure for the Inegrated Government Online Training (iGOT) platform. It delivers online training to more than 20 million public sector workers across over 800 districts in 18 Indian languages.

Connecting multiple continents through both east and west coast landing points, Google is strengthening India’s role as a global interconnection hub.

Subsea expansion strengthens global routes

Google has confirmed a new subsea gateway in Visakhapatnam, also known as Vizag, alongside three subsea routes linking India to Singapore, South Africa and Australia. These routes will directly support connectivity between Asia, Africa and Australia, while linking onward to North America through existing systems.

Four terrestrial fibre-optic routes will complement these subsea investments by connecting the US, India and regions across the Southern Hemisphere.

On India’s east coast, a direct fibre path will link Vizag to Chennai and extends towards South Africa. When combined with the Equiano and Nuvem subsea systems, this creates a redundant high-capacity route, with 'redunant' meaning the route will be duplicated for reliability. This ensures that traffic will continue to flow if one path fails.

Brian Quigley, VP of Global Network Infrastructure at Google Cloud, says: "We’re as committed as ever to partnering with communities, businesses, and governments to foster AI innovation for all, and we are excited to support the next generation of global connection."

A second east coast route will connect Vizag to Singapore, which will integrate with the Bosun and Tabua systems and form a South Pacific path linking North America to India through Australia. These interlinked systems will create route diversity, which reduces reliance on single cables and lowers the risk of disruption.

Vizag is rapidly emerging as a major subsea landing point, adding to Mumbai and Chennai. The additional landing stations will improve traffic distribution and increase resilience across national and international networks.

West coast routes extend intercontinental reach

On India’s west coast, Google plans to construct a direct fibre path between Mumbai and Western Australia. This will integrate with the TalayLink and Honomoana subsea systems, forming another South Pacific route that connects North America and Australia with India.

This new route adds to the Blue, Raman and Sol subsea cables, which together establish a corridor from North America through the Red Sea to Mumbai. Such corridors act as high-capacity data pathways that support cloud computing and consumer internet services. 

The network design follows a mesh structure rather than a single linear route, as with multiple paths, Google builds a more resilient global system. The approach supports increasing demand for bandwidth as digital services and enterprise applications continue to expand.

AI services rely on telecoms infrastructure

Google plans to connect this infrastructure rollout directly to AI deployment, where reliable telco networks support cloud platforms and data processing.

The high-capacity subsea cables and fibre routes will allow faster and more stable connections, which are essential for AI workloads that depend on real-time data access.

Benefitting millions of workers, the digital AI tools that cloud infrastructure provides will enhance India's iGOT platform by improving search and accessibility.

Overall, the initiative reflects a core priority for telcos to extend international capacity while improving resilience across routes that carry growing volumes of data traffic.