Google to Lead $120M Papua New Guinea Subsea Cable Scheme
Google to Lead $120M Papua New Guinea Subsea Cable Scheme
By Robert Clark, Light Reading
December 15, 2025
The Australian government is to fund a $120 million submarine cable project for its strategic northern neighbor Papua New Guinea. It has tapped Google to lead the rollout, which officials say is an initiative under Pukpuk Treaty, the new Papua New Guinea-Australia defense treaty signed in October.
Peter Tsiamalili, Papua New Guinea’s acting minister for information and communications technology, said two cables would deliver connectivity to north and south Papua New Guinea, with a third connecting to the autonomous territory of Bougainville off Papua New Guinea’s north-east coast.
He said the new infrastructure would enhance the quality of nationwide connectivity, reduce reliance on single points of failure and expand connections to underserved regions, including Bougainville.
“Together, these routes will establish a resilient, multi-path network designed to safeguard national connectivity and expand access across underserved regions.”
The new capacity would also help Papua New Guinea attract investment from hyperscalers and global digital enterprises, he said.
Tsiamalili and senior Australian and US diplomats discussed the project in a meeting at Google’s Sydney office last week.
In a statement, a foreign affairs official said the Australian government had committed more than 450 million Australian dollars (US$299 million) “to support undersea cable connectivity across the Pacific and Timor-Leste, including the Coral Sea Cable between Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Australia.”
Cable activism
This funding has included an estimated $93 million to replace a contract for the Coral Sea system that had been originally awarded to Huawei, and a $73 million grant and loan package to build a second Solomon Islands system, announced last month.
Driving this cable activism is the strategic rivalry between China and the US and its allies, with China striking a series of trade, security and telecom-related deals with small nations such as Solomon Islands and Cook Islands.
The new project also highlights Google’s role as one of the region’s most active submarine capacity builders, often in partnership with the Australian government. Last month it announced plans to build a data center hub on Christmas Island, an Australian territory south of Java, which is also set to be connected to Australia and Singapore.
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