Chapter 04 of 5
The Tech Giant Takeover
How Big Tech bought the ocean to build private global highways.
- Power Shift
The End of Renting
For decades, tech companies rented space on cables owned by telecom giants. Now, they are building their own.
- Market Domination
The New Owners
Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft now own or lease nearly half of all undersea bandwidth. A decade ago, their share was less than 5%.
- Scale
The Google Fleet
Google alone has invested in at least 22 subsea cables globally. They are no longer just a search engine; they are a global utility.
17 more cards in this chapter
Could you answer this?
Which company is leading the '2Africa' project to encircle the African continent with fiber optics?
⚓ The Undersea Backbone
- 01The 1858 Leap of FaithThe Victorian era's desperate attempt to bridge the Atlantic via telegraph.
- 02The Armor & The AbyssSurviving the deep: How we build glass strands to withstand the ocean floor.
- 03Sabotage in the DarkSubmarine warfare and the terrifying fragility of international data.
- 04The Tech Giant TakeoverHow Big Tech bought the ocean to build private global highways.
- 05The Global Choke PointsCritical vulnerabilities and the islands that hold the world's data.