Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc on Thursday announced they would work together to lay a high-speed Internet cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
A new, subsea “MAREA” cable was expected to be completed by late next year, with the aim of meeting growing demand by the tech companies’ customers for fast, reliable data connections.
“As the world is increasingly moving toward a future based on cloud computing, Microsoft continues to invest in our cloud infrastructure to meet current and future growing global demand for our more than 200 cloud services,” Microsoft data center strategy general manager Christian Belady said in a release.
MAREA will be the highest-capacity subsea cable ever crossing the Atlantic, with an expected capacity of about 160 terabytes per second of data, the companies said.
The 6,600km cable system will also be the first connecting the US and southern Europe, running from northern Virginia to Bilbao, Spain, Microsoft and Facebook said.
From Spain, the data network will link to hubs in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other parts of Europe, the companies said.
Microsoft and Facebook said they are working with global communications company Telxius, owned by Telefonica SA, on the cable project.
“We’re always evaluating new technologies and systems in order to provide the best connectivity possible,” Facebook vice president of network engineering Najam Ahmad said. “We want to do more of these projects in this manner — allowing us to move fast with more collaboration.”
Microsoft bought into Facebook nine years ago, paying US$240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the leading social network.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy