"Anchored in Kenya, the Umoja cable route will pass through Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, including the Google Cloud region, before crossing the Indian Ocean to Australia," Google's statement said.
Google added that the Umoja cable's terrestrial path was developed in collaboration with Liquid Intelligent Technologies, to form a scalable route through Africa, including access points that will allow other countries to take advantage of the network.
Together with Equiano, the new combined system will be known as Africa Connect.
The Equiano cable's US$14 billion journey began in Lisbon, Portugal in 2019 and has several stops along the west coast of Africa. The cable has a landing in Melkbosstrand, South Africa, as well as in Swakopmund in Namibia.
Google said that the new Umoja cable will enable African countries to connect with each other and the rest of the world more reliably.
Umoja to help maintain resilient network
Google said establishing a new route distinct from existing connectivity routes is critical to maintaining a resilient network for a region that has historically experienced high-impact outages.
"The new intercontinental fibre-optic route will significantly enhance our global and regional digital infrastructure. This initiative is crucial in ensuring the redundancy and resilience of our region's connectivity to the rest of the world, especially considering recent disruptions caused by cuts to sub-marine cables," said Kenyan President William Ruto.
"Africa's major cities, including Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali, Lubumbashi, Lusaka and Harare, will no longer be hard-to-reach endpoints remote from the coastal landing sites that connect Africa to the world," added Strive Masiyiwa, chairman and founder of Liquid and its parent company Cassava Technologies.
"Diversifying Australia's connectivity and supporting digital inclusion across the globe are both incredibly important objectives, and Google's Umoja cable will help to do just that," Australian Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said.
The Umoja cable comes at a time when several subs-marine cables linking Africa to the rest of the world have experienced outages that impacted Internet connectivity in 2024.
