Grace Hopper

Overview

Grace Hopper is a privately owned transatlantic submarine cable system spanning approximately 6,250 kilometres beneath the North Atlantic. Owned entirely by Google, it connects landing stations at Bude in Cornwall, New York in the United States, and Bilbao in Spain — three points that together cover the principal commercial corridors of the North Atlantic basin.

The cable carries a design capacity of 352 Tbit/s, placing it among the higher-capacity systems on a route that has historically carried more international internet traffic than any other ocean crossing. The North Atlantic corridor underpins a significant share of transatlantic data exchange between North America and Europe, and a direct Spain landing extends reach toward southern European and broader Mediterranean network interconnection points.

Route and Landing Points

Bude, on the north Cornish coast, has served as a cable landing point for decades and remains one of the United Kingdom's primary subsea entry points. New York is the dominant East Coast landing hub for transatlantic cables in the United States. Bilbao's inclusion gives the system a foothold on the Iberian Peninsula, differentiating Grace Hopper's route from older transatlantic cables that overwhelmingly favoured landings in France or Portugal.

Ownership and Build Context

Google is the sole owner of Grace Hopper, continuing a broader strategy of building and operating dedicated subsea infrastructure rather than relying exclusively on capacity purchased from consortium-owned cables. The builder of the system has not been publicly documented. Single-owner cables of this type give hyperscale operators direct control over capacity planning, maintenance scheduling and network redundancy.

Regional Context

Grace Hopper operates alongside a growing number of private and consortium transatlantic cables. Its combination of a high design capacity, three geographically spread landing points and sole Google ownership makes it a distinct element of the North Atlantic cable mix rather than a straightforward replacement for earlier shared systems.