SoftBank Corp. announced that the Asia Direct Cable (“ADC”) Consortium^*1, of which it is a member, is building a high-performance submarine cable that connects China (Hong Kong SAR and Guangdong Province), Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The consortium has selected NEC Corporation to build the 9,400-kilometer long ADC cable, which is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2022. APAC submarine cable 

The cable will feature multiple pairs of high capacity optical fibers and is designed to carry more than 140 Tbps of traffic, enabling high capacity transmissions of data across the East and Southeast Asia regions.

ADC’s high capacity allows it to support increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications which are driven by technological advancements in 5G, the cloud, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will further enhance the expansion of communications networks in the region.

SoftBank will provide its Maruyama Cable Landing Station (“Maruyama CLS”) for ADC cable landing in Japan. Maruyama CLS has been serving its landing services for many submarine cables including “JUPITER”^*2, which is expected to start operating in 2020. In December 2019, to expand the Data Center capability of Maruyama CLS, a new building was constructed and is now ready for service, complete with the latest security technologies and a robust structure design for disaster preparedness. Through these global infrastructure developments, SoftBank will continue to stably provide capacity to the industry to meet increasing traffic demand in the Asia-Pacific region. SoftBank will also provide one of the important global gateway Data Centers for international submarine cables in Japan to contribute to the development of the telecommunication industry.APAC submarine cable 

In anticipation of the further expansion of new businesses that utilize various cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, IoT, AI, and the cloud, SoftBank will continue to develop and optimize its network to meet increasing Internet traffic demand. In doing so, SoftBank will support the global businesses of its customers and SoftBank group companies.

*1 The ADC is a global consortium comprised of leading communications and technology companies, including SoftBank., China Telecom, China Unicom, PLDT Inc., Viettel, CAT, Singtel and Tata Communications. APAC submarine cable 

1. *2