At a glance
SUBCO announced three new submarine cables on 22 September 2026: APX North from Sydney to Japan via Guam, APX East-2 from Guam to Los Angeles, and APX West from Perth to Singapore.
Each system carries 24 fibre pairs, and SUBCO is targeting completion of all three in 2029.
The two end-to-end systems already linking Australia and Japan via Guam run on two fibre pairs each, and APX North would let selected pairs bypass Guam.
APX West branches to Jakarta and to Batam, where Firmus and DayOne are co-developing a 360MW AI factory campus.
SUBCO expects contract in force on all three by early 2027, as it finalises cable supply and vessels.
SUBCO, the submarine cable company founded by Bevan Slattery, announced APX North, APX East-2 and APX West on 22 September 2026, the day before Submarine Networks World opens in Singapore. Slattery, who also founded NEXTDC and Megaport, said SUBCO is "about to undertake the single largest subsea infrastructure build ever by a carrier in the Indo-Pacific", with over 40,000km of cable planned for installation in just over three years.
Australia's main international cable routes run in three directions: east to the United States, north to Japan and Guam, and west to Singapore and the Middle East. Hamid Maani is managing director of A1 Infrastructure Partners in Auckland and spent nine years with the Hawaiki trans-Pacific cable and its owner, BW Digital, latterly as chief sales officer. In a guest column published on 15 September 2026, ahead of his panel on subsea and interconnect at the Sydney Cloud & Datacenter Convention, he estimated that Australia needs at least two more systems in each of those directions, over and above the projects already in the pipeline, to serve the AI build.
With APX East anchored by Firmus, SUBCO now has a proposed system of 16 fibre pairs or more on each of Australia's three international routes, all due between late 2028 and 2029.
APX North gives Sydney 24 fibre pairs to Japan
APX North is a 9,500km, 24 fibre pair system connecting Sydney to Japan via Guam. SUBCO says it will be "the first hypercable from Australia directly to the interconnection hub of Guam, and the first system to offer direct connectivity between Japan and Australia". The direct route comes from switched branching units: SUBCO says that, like the SMAP hypercable along Australia's southern coast, APX North will let selected fibre pairs bypass the Guam landing and run direct between Australia and Japan.
Australia already reaches Japan by way of Guam on the Australia-Japan Cable, in service since 2001 on two fibre pairs, and on the JGA system, whose southern leg from Sydney and the Sunshine Coast to Guam entered service in 2020, also on two pairs. Vocus's PPC-1, which Slattery's PIPE Networks put into service in 2009, runs Sydney to Guam on two pairs. APX North would add 24 pairs on the same corridor, into Japan's data centre market.
APX East-2 continues the route from Guam to Los Angeles over 10,000km, on 24 fibre pairs. "This segment is vital and will serve as the backbone for trans-Pacific traffic between Asia and the US, as well as providing diverse connectivity for Australia and Japan via APX North," Slattery said.
APX West adds a Perth route through Batam and Jakarta
APX West is a 4,600km, 24 fibre pair system from Perth to Singapore, with branches to Jakarta and Batam in Indonesia. SUBCO says the design allows traffic to switch in and out of new interconnection hubs in both cities, and Slattery said that flexibility would be offered "to our cornerstone customers through APX West".
Perth's two direct cables to Singapore, Vocus's Australia Singapore Cable and INDIGO West, were both out of service at the same time in September 2026, sending Perth's Singapore traffic across the Pacific. The Batam branch reaches the island where Firmus and DayOne are co-developing a 360MW AI factory campus for NVIDIA systems.
SUBCO's build now covers all three directions
System | Route and fibre pairs | Target |
|---|---|---|
APX East | Sydney to California, about 13,000km, 16 fibre pairs | Fourth quarter of 2028 |
APX North | Sydney to Japan via Guam, 9,500km, 24 fibre pairs | 2029 |
APX East-2 | Guam to Los Angeles, 10,000km, 24 fibre pairs | 2029 |
APX West | Perth to Singapore, Batam and Jakarta, 4,600km, 24 fibre pairs | 2029 |
Bernacchi-1 | Tasmania to the mainland, joining SMAP, more than 60Tbps on day one | Second quarter of 2027 |
Source: SUBCO, 19 January, 2 June and 22 September 2026; Firmus, 3 September 2026.
Firmus is the anchor on the first and last of those. It committed about US$300 million for up to 150 terabits a second on APX East over 25 years, which on current per-pair capacities fills eight to ten of the cable's 16 pairs, and it underwrote Bernacchi-1 to Tasmania. SMAP, the 5,000km Sydney to Perth system traced on the SMAP hypercable map, reached ready for service on 25 June 2026, and SUBCO's Oman Australia Cable has run Perth to Muscat since October 2022.
Slattery wrote on LinkedIn that a further project, "Eurasia", would extend the Oman Australia Cable to Europe, with a diverse fibre pair through the Middle East, then a further fibre pair on the Blue cable through the Mediterranean to Marseille.
SUBCO targets contract in force by early 2027
"I know it's ambitious, but it's achievable and it's necessary," Slattery said. "We are finalising the details of cable supply and vessels and expect to be Contract in Force on all three systems by early next year." Contract in force is the point at which a supply contract takes effect and survey and manufacturing begin.
Slattery tied the build to AI data centres, which he calls AI factories: "People have been slow to understand that AI factories are dead without massive subsea connectivity to carry tokens from factory to customers. Hundreds and hundreds of terabits per second." Maani's view is that neocloud providers in Australia can turn forecast AI demand into the long contracts that finance new cables, and he names Firmus's Bernacchi-1 as an example.
Can SUBCO lay 40,000km of cable by 2029?
Firmus committed about US$300 million to APX East over 25 years, more than two years before the cable is due to carry traffic. Slattery's open items on the three new systems are cable supply and vessels, the specialist ships that lay subsea cable. The two cables SUBCO has built itself, SMAP and the Oman Australia Cable, are both carrying traffic.
We expect SUBCO to reach contract in force on all three systems by early 2027, because Firmus committed two years ahead of service and SUBCO has delivered the two cables it built itself. Contract in force is the point at which the supply contracts take effect. If SUBCO holds that date, cable capacity out of Australia stops being a constraint on the AI build by 2029, and the constraint moves back to power, land and planning.
What to watch
Contract in force by early 2027. Slattery has set that date for all three systems, with cable supply and vessels still being finalised.
Submarine Networks World. SUBCO is at the event in Singapore on 23 and 24 September 2026, and Slattery wrote that he would explain why the build matters for the AI community "in the coming days".