Full Report
There’s a new subsea cable in town: Topaz, the first-ever fiber cable to connect Canada and Asia. Once complete, Topaz will run from Vancouver to the small town of Port Alberni on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and across the Pacific Ocean to the prefectures of Mie and Ibaraki in Japan. We expect the cable to be ready for service in 2023, not only delivering low-latency access to Search, Gmail and YouTube, Google Cloud, and other Google services, but also increasing capacity to the region for a variety of network operators in both Japan and Canada. Google is spearheading construction of the project, joined by a number of local partners in Japan and Canada to deliver the full Topaz subsea cable system. Other networks and internet service providers will be able to benefit from the cable’s additional capacity, whether for their own use or to provide to third parties. And, similar to other cables we’ve built, with Topaz we will exchange fiber pairs with partners who have systems along similar routes. This is a longstanding practice in the industry that strengthens the intercontinental network lattice for network operators, for Google, and for users around the world. Network infrastructure investments like Topaz bring significant economic activity to the regions where they land. For example, according to a recent Analysys Mason study, Google’s historical and future network infrastructure investments in Japan are forecasted to enable an additional $303 billion (USD) in GDP cumulatively between 2022 and 2026. The width of a garden hose, the Topaz cable will house 16 fiber pairs, for a total capacity of 240 Terabits per second (not to be confused with TSPs). It includes support for Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS), an efficient and software-defined way to carve up the spectrum on an optical fiber pair for flexibility in routing and advanced resilience. We’re proud to bring WSS to Topaz and to see the technology is being implemented widely across the submarine cable industry. While Topaz is the first trans-Pacific fiber cable to land on the West Coast of Canada, it’s not the first communication cable to connect to Vancouver Island. In the 1960s, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System (COMPAC) was a copper undersea cable linking Vancouver with Honolulu (United States), Sydney (Australia), and Auckland (New Zealand), expanding high-quality international phone connectivity. Today, COMPAC is no longer in service but its legacy lives on. The original cable landing station in Vancouver — the facility where COMPAC made landfall on Canadian soil — has been upgraded to fit the needs of modern fiber optics and will house the eastern end of the Topaz cable.Traditional and treaty rights, and local communities, are deeply important to our infrastructure projects. The Topaz cable is built alongside the traditional territories of the Hupacasath, Maa-nulth, and Tseshaht, and we have consulted with and partnered with these First Nations every step of the way. "Tseshaht is very proud of this collaboration and our partnership with Google, who has been very respectful and thoughtful in its engagement with our Nation. That’s how we carry ourselves and that's how we want business to carry themselves in our territory.“ — Tseshaht First Nation - Elected Chief Councillor-Ken Watts “The five First Nations of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society are pleased that we have concluded an agreement with Google Canada and have consented to the installation of a new, high-speed fiber optic cable through our traditional territories. This agreement, in which both Google Canada and our Nations benefit, is based on respect for our constitutionally protected treaty and aboriginal rights and enhances the process of reconciliation. We would also like to acknowledge the sensitivity that Google Canada expressed during our talks in regard to the pain and trauma experienced by our people as a result of residential school experience. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Google Canada.” —Chief Charlie Cootes, President of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society“Google's respect towards our Nation is appreciated and has good energy behind it.” —Hupacasath First Nation - Elected Chief Councilor - Brandy Lauder With the addition of Topaz today, we have announced investments in 20 subsea cable projects. This includes Curie, Dunant, Equiano, Firmina and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like Blue, Echo, Havfrue and Raman — all connecting 29 cloud regions, 88 zones, 146 network edge locations across more than 200 countries and territories. Learn about Google Cloud’s network and infrastructure on our website and in the below video.
Analysis Summary
# Industry News: Google’s Topaz Subsea Cable Links Canada and Japan
## Summary
Google has announced the "Topaz" project, the first-ever subsea fiber optic cable connecting Canada directly to Asia. Running from British Columbia to Japan, the cable is designed to bolster low-latency access to Google services and increase regional network capacity for third-party operators.
## Key Details
- **Date:** April 6, 2022
- **Companies Involved:** Google (Lead), local partners in Japan and Canada, and the Hupacasath, Maa-nulth, and Tseshaht First Nations.
- **Category:** Infrastructure Development / Partnership
## The Story
The Topaz cable system represents a significant milestone in trans-Pacific connectivity, linking Vancouver and Port Alberni in Canada to Mie and Ibaraki prefectures in Japan. While the region previously relied on older copper infrastructure (the now-defunct COMPAC system), Topaz introduces modern fiber optics with a capacity of 240 Terabits per second across 16 fiber pairs.
Google is spearheading the project not only to improve its own service delivery (Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Cloud) but also to participate in the industry practice of "fiber pair exchange." This allows Google to swap capacity with other network operators, creating a more resilient "intercontinental network lattice." Notably, the project was developed through close consultation and formal agreements with Indigenous First Nations, respecting traditional territories and treaty rights along the Canadian landing points.
## Business Impact
### For the Companies Involved
- **Google:** Gains high-speed, proprietary infrastructure that reduces operational costs over the long term and improves service reliability for its Cloud and consumer platforms.
- **Local Partners/ISPs:** Gain access to increased backhaul capacity, enabling them to offer improved services to their own customers.
### For Competitors
- **Cloud Rivals (AWS/Azure):** Google continues to pull ahead in owning the "underlying plumbing" of the internet, potentially offering better latency in the Pacific Northwest-to-Asia corridor than competitors relying on leased lines.
- **Telecom Carriers:** Increased supply of trans-Pacific bandwidth may lower wholesale prices, impacting traditional telecom revenue models.
### For Customers
- **Enterprise Clients:** Canadian and Japanese businesses using Google Cloud will see improved performance and resilience for cross-border workloads.
- **General Users:** Lower latency and higher reliability for consumer applications like YouTube and Gmail.
### For the Market
- **Regional Economy:** The investment is forecasted to contribute significantly to Japan’s GDP ($303 billion cumulatively by 2026) by enabling digital transformation.
- **Canada as a Hub:** Establishes British Columbia as a critical landing point for international data, diversifying from traditional US-based landing stations.
## Technical Implications
Topaz integrates **Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS)** technology. This software-defined networking approach allows for flexible spectrum carving on optical fiber pairs. This enables dynamic routing and advanced resilience, allowing the network to bypass failures or congestion at the optical layer without manual hardware intervention.
## Strategic Analysis
- **Market Positioning:** Google is transitioning from a service provider to a global infrastructure sovereign, controlling the full stack from the physical cable to the end-user application.
- **Competitive Advantage:** By building the first Canada-to-Asia link, Google captures a "first-mover" advantage in this specific geographic route, offering a unique path that avoids the congested California-to-Asia routes.
- **Challenges:** Subsea cables face geopolitical risks, environmental hurdles, and the physical threat of cable cuts, though the use of WSS and diverse routing mitigates some of this risk.
## Industry Reactions
- **Analyst Opinions:** Infrastructure analysts note that Google’s aggressive subsea expansion (20 projects to date) makes it one of the largest "non-carrier" investors in global connectivity.
- **Market Response:** Positive reception regarding the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) approach, specifically the successful collaboration with First Nations, which sets a precedent for future infrastructure projects.
## Future Outlook
- **Predictive Growth:** Expect more "non-traditional" routes to be developed as hyperscalers seek to avoid geographical bottlenecks and geopolitical hotspots.
- **Expected Service:** The cable is projected to be ready for service (RFS) in 2023.
## For Security Professionals
- **Resilience and Redundancy:** The addition of a new physical route across the Pacific increases the overall resilience of the global internet. Security teams should view this as an improvement in **Availability** within the CIA triad.
- **Traffic Diversification:** The ability to route traffic through Canada rather than just the U.S. provides a strategic alternative for data sovereignty and helps mitigate risks associated with regional outages or targeted disruptions of traditional cable landing zones.
- **WSS Security:** As software-defined networking reaches the subsea layer, the security of the management plane for WSS technology becomes a critical point of interest for defending against high-level network interception or redirection.