From CommsDay of 4 September 2026
Our Story of the Week is an article that was published in CommsDay today on the progress with SUBCO’s new APX East trans-Pacific cable from the US west coast to Australia. The story is important because, amongst other things, it highlights the substantial investments and risks involved, the dependence on global foundation users, the timescales and the sheer growth in capacity now required for projected AI demand.
Slattery warns cable constraints could limit Australia’s AI hub ambitions
Structural constraints in the submarine cable sector could limit Australia’s prospects as a global AI hub, SUBCO founder and co-CEO
Bevan Slattery has said. Slattery’s warning came Firmus revealed it would commit approximately A$420 million to SUBCO’s planned APX
East cable.
The investment, announced as approximately US$300 million, will make Firmus a cornerstone customer on the 12,900km trans-Pacific
system. It will secure up to 150Tbps of dedicated capacity between Australia and the US for 25 years—equivalent to half of the capacity
planned for its 16 pair configuration.
Speaking at the annual AUSNOG event in Brisbane, Slattery identified lengthy cable development timelines, hyperscaler control of new systems and Australia’s lack of a nationally controlled cable ship as constraints on its AI ambitions.
The scale of Firmus’ reservation illustrates the connectivity requirements of large AI factories. The allocation is more than two-and-a-half times the capacity NBN Co had configured to carry Australia’s entire peak busy-hour traffic just two years ago, CommsDay estimates.
Slattery said Australia could develop more than 3GW of AI factory capacity within the next two or three years, subject to government policy. SUBCO estimates facilities of this scale could require between 75Tbps and 225Tbps of international capacity.
Firmus will use APX East to connect its planned Australian AI factory network directly with the US and other global markets.
Firmus co-founder and co-CEO Tim Rosenfield described the agreement as “a 25-year investment in Australia’s future”.
“AI is fast becoming one of Australia’s next major export industries, but that opportunity will only be realised if we invest in the infrastructure that underpins it,” Rosenfield said. “At Firmus, we’re building a network of AI Factories across Australia. But building
the compute is only part of the challenge. We also need to reliably connect that infrastructure to the world.”
FOUR-YEAR NETWORK LEAD TIME: Slattery said submarine cables remained an overlooked component of Australian AI infrastructure despite having the longest delivery time. SUBCO estimates that power for a 1GW project could be arranged in about 12
months, a data centre built in 18 months and NVIDIA chips delivered within six months. Providing the required network capacity could take four years.
A 1GW AI factory could involve between $10bn and $15bn of data centre investment and approximately $45bn of NVIDIA chips, while requiring between 25Tbps and 75Tbps of connectivity.
At 3GW, SUBCO’s estim Firmus’ reservation is near the upper end of SUBCO’s estimated requirement for a 1GW AI factory and represents two-thirds of its upper estimate for 3GW.
“The connectivity requirements of AI are fundamentally reshaping demand patterns on international subsea routes,” Slattery said in the companies’ announcement. “Firmus’ decision to anchor capacity on APX East validates what we’ve been working toward – building the secure hyper-connectivity needed across the Indo-Pacific region for the next generation.”
EXPRESS US ROUTE: APX East is being designed as a 16-fibre-pair express system between Sydney and Los Angeles, with expected latency of about 130 milliseconds. The single continuous optical path will have no intermediate landing or regeneration point. Fibre-pair owners will only require submarine line terminal equipment at each end, while the system is being designed so it can be powered from one end during a fault.
SUBCO initially considered landing near San Diego but is now finalising an agreement in Los Angeles. Avoiding a Hawaii landing will reduce permitting complexity and shallow-water installation risks, although the system will include a branching
unit that could support a future Fiji connection.
At the Australian end, APX East will be the first international cable to land north of Sydney’s existing cable protection zone, providing geographic diversity from the Southern Cable Protection Zone used by most recently proposed hypercables.
The formal ready-for-service target is the fourth quarter of 2028. Slattery nevertheless told AUSNOG that SUBCO was trying to complete it before the Los Angeles Olympic Games begin in July that year.
He said the principal permits covering the route from Sydney to the US exclusive economic zone could be secured within six months.
The Firmus commitment provides APX East with a major commercial foundation, although SUBCO must still complete permitting, finalise its landing arrangements and construct almost 13,000km of cable on a compressed timetable.
APX East will compete with planned Australia-US systems including Google’s Tabua and Honomoana and BW Digital’s Hawaiki Nui. Southern Cross Next already serves the Australia-mainland US route.
REPAIR MODEL UNDER PRESSURE: Slattery said Australia’s rising need for international connectivity was coinciding with the concentration of new cable ownership among US hyperscalers. Such systems are primarily built to support their owners’ platforms, lower internal costs and provide greater control. Slattery cautioned that hyperscalers should not necessarily be expected to sell fibre to competing AI providers.
His presentation showed seven Google systems among the major new cables expected to enter the regional maintenance zone by 2030, compared with two from SUBCO and Meta’s Waterworth. The shift could destabilise the South Pacific Marine Maintenance Agreement, which shares the cost of repair ships, crews and spare equipment among participating cable owners. Southern Cross North and South, Telstra’s Endeavour and Australia–Japan Cable, and Vocus’ PPC-1 are among the systems expected to retire. Slattery said roughly
60,000km of cable could leave the maintenance pool.
If hyperscaler replacements remain outside the arrangement, the number of contributing kilometres could fall substantially and costs would rise for the remaining members. Slattery said the model could begin to unravel within three to five years. “Australia does not have a single submarine cable vessel under its control,” he said.
SUBCO is considering purchasing a new installation and repair ship for approximately A$250 million. It would need to decide by the end of 2026 to secure delivery by the end of 2029. SUBCO would own the vessel but appoint a specialist operator under an arrangement guaranteeing Australian access. Slattery said Australian and US government contributions would probably be needed to support operating and maintenance costs and secure availability for Australia and Pacific countries.
He contrasted Australia’s position with Europe, which has committed around €1bn to cable surveillance, repair vessels, drones, data sharing and strategically located equipment reserves.
Grahame Lynch
IN TODAY’S COMMSDAY (Friday 4 September 2026)
Structural constraints in the submarine cable sector could limit Australia’s prospects as a global AI hub, SUBCO founder and co-CEO Bevan Slattery has said. Slattery’s warning came as Firmus revealed it would commit approximately A$420 million to SUBCO’s planned APX East cable.
The federal government will expand NBN Co’s fibre upgrade program to cover more than 99% of the final tranche of 622,000 premises served by fibre-to-the-node technology.
Telstra, Optus, TPG Telecom, Aussie Broadband, Superloop and Vocus are among 95 telcos that have joined the Australian Financial Complaints Authority ahead of the Scams Prevention Framework commencing on 31 March 2027.
Opensignal has released new data revealing the scope of the Wi-Fi bottleneck for Australia’s NBN services, including stark differences in router performance of broadband subscribers across major RSPs.
The Australian Defence Force is working with researchers from the University of New South Wales to explore how ground-based optical sensors can strengthen Australia’s space domain awareness capability.
Cisco is seeing an enhanced rate of hardware refresh among enterprises as part of what it believes is a new AI-driven networking ‘supercycle’.
One NZ has endorsed the Commerce Commission’s proposal to deregulate the mobile co-location service on the grounds that the service is no longer an effective or required regulatory mechanism.
Amazon Web Services announced Sta’O’Nuk, a new subsea cable linking Washington state in the US with Japan that will deliver 420Tbps of capacity on 20 fibre pairs.
Researchers at KDDI and Samsung Electronics have achieved wireless networking speeds of 3.6Gbps on the 7GHz band by enhancing antenna and modulation technologies.
Former Chorus CEO JB Rousselot will join the board of Aussie Broadband in early October.
and in CommsDay’s AI Infra supplement:
The NSW government has formally commissioned the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal to review water pricing for data centres, opening a new front of regulatory uncertainty for AI infrastructure investment in the state.
Australia could build as much as 6GW of AI compute within two or three years through an ambitious program of special compute zones, accelerated approvals and agreements with frontier AI developers, according to Center for a New American Security policy researcher Janet Egan.
Australia has only months to resolve copyright uncertainty before investment in large-scale AI training facilities shifts to competing markets, according to Center for a New American Security policy researcher Janet Egan.
The Housing Industry Association and the National Electrical and Communications Association have called for increased investment in apprenticeships and traineeships across construction and electrotechnology trades as part of an effort to address a skills squeeze driven by the data centre boom.
A petition signed by more than 10,000 Tasmanians has called for an immediate moratorium on unfinished AI and data centre developments until the state introduces dedicated planning rules, resource reporting and parliamentary oversight.
Equinix unveiled two new products designed to facilitate interconnections across technology domains and enable AI inference.
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