The Brisbane-based operator is aiming to complete all three systems by 2029, with contract in force expected on each by early 2027. The announcement follows SUBCO’s APX East launch earlier this year, an express trans-Pacific route between Sydney and California, and comes as the SMAP transcontinental cable connecting Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth nears completion.
APX North is a 9,500km, 24 fibre pair system linking Sydney to Japan via Guam. It will be the first hypercable to connect Australia directly to the Guam interconnection hub, and the first system offering direct connectivity between Japan and Australia. As with SMAP, switched branching units will allow selected fibre pairs to bypass Guam and run direct between Australia and Japan.
APX East-2 spans 10,000km with 24 fibre pairs, connecting Guam to Los Angeles. SUBCO said the route is intended to provide route diversity between the US, Japan and Australia.
Bevan Slattery, founder and co-CEO of SUBCO, said the segment would serve as “the backbone for trans-Pacific traffic between Asia and the US.”
APX West, the shortest of the three at 4,600km with 24 fibre pairs, will connect Perth to Singapore, with branches into Jakarta and Batam in Indonesia. SUBCO said the design would allow cornerstone customers to switch in and out of new regional interconnection hubs.
Slattery said Singapore and Indonesia would remain “critical to Asia’s connectivity landscape” as bandwidth demand accelerates.
The three systems represent what Slattery described as the largest subsea infrastructure build ever undertaken by a carrier in the Indo-Pacific, with more than 40,000km of cable to be installed within just over three years. The build adds to a period of heavy AI-driven investment in Australian connectivity, following Vocus’s decision to build the country’s first ducted long-haul fibre route between Sydney and Melbourne, and Google and Telstra’s capacity-swap deal combining terrestrial and subsea routes across the Pacific.
“AI factories are dead without massive subsea connectivity to carry tokens from factory to customer,” Slattery said, adding that SUBCO’s team would grow significantly as each system reaches contract in force.
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