New submarine cable connects China, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore

Infrastructure provides 'robust network foundation' for digital development.

The SEA-H2X (Southeast Asia-Hainan-Hong Kong) international submarine cable has launched commercially, linking Hainan and Hong Kong in China to Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

Led by China Mobile, the approximately 5,746 km submarine cable features open cable access technology and a system design capacity of more than 200 Tbps. Upon commissioning, the telecom company secured over 100 Tbps of dedicated bandwidth. China Mobile is the infrastructure's biggest investor and the operator of the SEA-H2X Network Operations Centre (NOC).      

"In response to the rapidly growing demand for computing power interconnection in the AI (artificial intelligence) era, SEA-H2X will further improve China Mobile's communication infrastructure layout in Greater China and the Asia-Pacific region, helping to build a 30-millisecond-level low-latency computing power circle between China and Southeast Asia, and providing low-latency, end-to-end security, and cost-effective computing power scheduling capabilities," the telco noted.

"China Mobile will integrate SEA-H2X with its existing Asia-Pacific submarine cable systems, such as APG, SJC, and SJC2, as well as intercontinental cables including SEA-ME-WE 5, PEACE, IAX system, and its global terrestrial network, PoPs (Points of Presence), data centres, and intelligent computing resources, to establish a cross-continental transmission corridor spanning Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe."

The plan, according to China Mobile, is to leverage SEA-H2X's deployment to deepen international cooperation whilst driving digital development in the region through the "robust network foundation" provided by the infrastructure.

As NOC operator of the cable system, China Mobile's remit will involve performance optimisation, fault diagnosis, and real-time monitoring.