Brazilian accession to the “Humboldt” fiber optic cable project - Joint Press Release by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Communications

Brazil announced on May 13 its accession to the fiber optic cable project “Humboldt”, a Chilean initiative that foresees the installation of the first submarine cable to interconnect South America with Oceania and Asia. In addition to Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have already joined the project.

The cable, which will have a system of 8 optical fibers and an initial data transmission capacity of up to 400 Gbps, will connect Valparaíso (Chile) to Sydney (Australia), passing through Auckland (New Zealand), in a total of 14,810 kilometers of extension. The connection from Australia to Asia will be made by 5 cables already in place and in operation.

By linking South America to Oceania and Asia, the initiative will contribute to increase the redundancy of the Brazilian connection to the global internet. It will also improve the availability and reliability of the system. In addition, it will allow an increase in data traffic towards the regions with the highest growth in demand for internet in the world.

The project will also complete the fiber optic connection of Brazil with its neighbors, consolidating the regional digital infrastructure and placing Brazil as a leader in the digital transformation and digital market in the region. Currently, Argentina, Brazil and Chile account for 80% of internet traffic in South America.

The Brazilian accession to the “Humboldt” cable project adds to other important initiatives of the Brazilian government. The auction of 5G frequencies will boost the national telecommunications market, by enabling industrial applications of an ultra-fast, ultra-stable and of minimal latency (response time to commands) technology.  The connection with Europe, via EllaLink submarine cable, will intensify data transmission with the leading continents in terms of demand and content production, reduce costs for companies and increase efficiency in production processes.

Over the following months, technical teams from the countries in the initiative will deepen the discussions on the financial and technical arrangements of Brazil's participation in this long-term project. The total volume of investments for the initiative was estimated at approximately US$ 400 million and the public-private partnership that will operate this project is expected to last 25 years.