谷歌（Google）正在擴張其罕為人知卻龐大無比的深海帝國。

這家搜索巨頭在兩周前表示，公司已經開始在日本與澳大利亞之間鋪設長達6,000英里的海底電纜，借以增加日益發展的云計算業務的網絡容量。

過去十年里，為了在香港、臺灣、新加坡等地提供互聯網連接、改善服務質量，谷歌已經鋪設了多條光纖電纜，該項目則是他們這一系列舉措中最新的一個。谷歌的網絡架構首席工程師維賈伊·烏斯里卡拉解釋道，盡管如今各公司在全世界已鋪設了超過300條海底電纜，但它們卻無法滿足谷歌所需的聯網能力——尤其是谷歌拓展海外云計算業務的需求。

舊有的許多海底電纜連接了紐約、倫敦等大城市。但谷歌的數據中心有不少都設在俄勒岡州或美國東南部，這些地區相對偏僻，至少電纜設施不夠發達，因此公司必須建立自己的電纜網絡。

谷歌之前曾表示，其全球網絡由數十萬根光纖電纜連接在一起。

烏斯里卡拉表示，日本的科技巨頭日本電氣（NEC Corporation）和阿爾卡特海底網絡（Alcatel Submarine Networks）正在幫助谷歌鋪設最新的海底電纜，預計工程將于2019年底完成。他拒絕透露項目的成本。

他說，過去三年里，云計算服務提供商和其他擁有大型數據中心的科技公司正在加快步伐鋪設海底光纖電纜。

例如，微軟（Microsoft）和Facebook最近就在弗吉尼亞州和西班牙之間鋪設了橫跨大西洋、長達4,000英里的海底電纜。與谷歌類似，這些公司正在全球各地迅速建立數據中心，他們需要海底電纜把各中心連接起來。

谷歌的全球網絡基礎設施主管邁克爾·弗朗索瓦表示，在常規的海底電纜項目中，阿爾卡特海底網絡這樣的公司會派出搭載大約20名船員的船只來鋪設電纜。他說，船員會在海上待3至5個月，在大型傳送帶的幫助下，逐步將船上的大卷光纜鋪到海底。

這種電纜本身就是大型的圓形電線，類似于傳統的電話電纜，只不過型號巨大。

谷歌從日本到澳大利亞鋪設的電纜分為兩段。第一段從日本到關島，第二段從關島到悉尼。弗朗索瓦表示，考慮到鋪設電纜需要的努力，“這是一個大項目，因為電纜需要上岸。”（財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正?

Google’s little-known but vast deep-sea empire is expanding.

The search giant said Tuesday that it has started installing a 6,000-mile undersea cable between Japan and Australia in an effort to increase network capacity for its growing cloud computing business.

Google’s new fiber-optic cable is the latest in a series it has installed over the past 10 years to provide Internet connectivity and improve its services in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Although there are already over 300 undersea cables worldwide that are owned by various companies, they can’t provide the networking power that Google requires—especially to grow its cloud business overseas, Google’s principal engineer of networking architecture Vijay Vusirikala explained.

Many older undersea cables connect major cities like New York City to London. But because several of Google’s data centers are in more out-of-the-way places —at least for cable infrastructure—like Oregon or the Southeast, the company must build its own cable network.

Google has previously said that its global network is connected by hundreds of thousands of fiber-optic cable.

Japanese technology giant NEC Corporation and Alcatel Submarine Networks are helping Google with the latest cable laying project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, Vusirikala said. He declined to comment about the cost.

Vusirikala said that cloud computing providers and other tech companies with vast data center infrastructure have increased the pace of laying undersea fiber-optic cables over the last three years.

Microsoft and Facebook, for instance, recently installed a 4,000-mile cable across the Atlantic Ocean between Virginia and Spain. Like Google, these companies are rapidly building data centers worldwide and need undersea cables to connect it all.

For a typical undersea cable project, companies like Alcatel Submarine Networks send ships with roughly 20 people to lay the cables, Google global network infrastructure executive Michael Francois said. Crew members can spend three-to-five months at sea to do the work with the help of a giant conveyor belt that gradually unrolls the giant roll of cable onboard, he said.

The cable itself resembles an oversized, circular wire similar to a conventional telephone cable, except supersized.

Google’s cable between Japan and Australia is made up of two segments. One extends from Japan to Guam and another stretches from Guam to Sydney. Considering the effort it takes to lay one of the cables, “it’s a big event when a cable does land or comes on to a shore,” Francois said.