Google Cloud is building a private inter-continental subsea cable to link Europe and Africa.
Equiano will jump off in Lisbon, with its first branch to Lagos, and will end in Cape Town.
Additional branching units can extend connectivity to additional African countries.
Alcatel Submarine Networks is building the cable, and the first phase of the project from Portugal to South Africa should be completed in 2021.
Equiano leverages space-division multiplexing (SDM), which should offer 20-times more network capacity than other cables.
The cable also incorporates optical switching at the fibre-pair level, which is said to simplify the allocation of cable capacity compared to traditional wavelength-level.
The cable’s names is a tribute to Olaudah Equiano, an 18th century Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist.