Back in 2013, Google set up two data centers in Asia to speed things up for Asian users and add some much-needed capacity on their services’ backends. One data center, the smaller of the two, was in Singapore and utilized a unique build to fit into a small urban space. The larger data center wound up in Taiwan. In a more central location and having more capacity, the Taiwan data center naturally sees more action each day. Both were also recently expanded, giving more capacity to users all over Asia. Fast forward to June of this year; a super-fast undersea fiber optic cable was laid down between the United States and Japan, with speeds up to 60 terabits per second. Google announced on Monday that they have laid down an additional section of cable to give their Taiwan data center a direct link to this FASTER cable. The section between Japan and Taiwan can run at up to 26 terabits per second.
The new uplink between the FASTER cable site in Japan and Google’s data center in Taiwan should speed things along for users of Google’s services all across Asia, though Google cautions that the full effect won’t be noticeable immediately. This is because the new pipeline is going to be tied in gradually to more and more servers over time, eventually linking the full contents of the data center directly to the FASTER cable. Speaking strictly in terms of bandwidth, the new pipeline alone would provide enough data center coverage and capacity for the transfer of one selfie per Taiwanese citizen across the pipeline to Japan every 15 seconds throughout the day.
The new cable was built for reliability, situated specifically outside of possible tsunami zones to avoid any interruptions in data flow or damage to the lines from tidal conditions or natural disasters. The cable lies beneath the ocean, and has more than enough capacity to shoulder the full burden of Google’s Asian services, albeit slowly, if ever needed. This means that Google service users all across Asia should see more reliability and faster speeds, with their connection to Google’s servers not faltering except under the most extreme of conditions.