SUBCO unveils APX East express cable linking Australia and US by 2028

The project will comprise 16 fibre pairs and is being positioned as the first system to give hyperscalers, neocloud providers and carriers direct fibre connectivity between Australia and the US without any intermediate landing or interconnection.

SUBCO said the design will deliver the lowest latency path between the two countries while offering higher levels of reliability, security and operational simplicity.

Founder and co-CEO Bevan Slattery said the architecture takes advantage of recent advances in subsea technology to create what the company describes as the longest continuous optical subsea path in the world, capable of being powered from a single end in fault conditions.

“Unlike all existing transpacific systems between Australia and the United States, fibre pair owners on APX East simply need to install SLTE on either end, and they’re away,” Slattery said. “No regeneration, no intermediate PoPs, just a single all-deepwater route.”

The main trunk will run between Sydney and California, with a branch to Hawaii planned for Q4 2029. SUBCO said choosing an all-deepwater route reduces permitting risk and supports an accelerated build timetable.

Slattery linked the project to the rapid growth of AI infrastructure in Australia, noting that hyperscalers and neoclouds are expected to deploy around 3GW of AI “factories” by 2028, requiring 75–150Tb of international capacity.

“Any future system with a 2029 or 2030 RFS simply won’t work,” he said. “People are forgetting that the longest lead item for Australia isn’t going to be power, land, data centres or chips, it’s going to be international connectivity at AI scale.”

APX East will land at a new diverse location north of Sydney’s existing cable protection zone, separate from other planned systems, and is billed as Australia’s first sovereign-owned international hypercable, reducing reliance on US hyperscaler-controlled routes.

Optional branches to Hawaii and Fiji, targeted for 2029, will provide additional resiliency and opportunities for future capacity regeneration.

Australia’s first submarine ‘hypercable’ ready for deployment