New agreements to advance the reach, reliability and resilience of connectivity for research and education institutions throughout the Pacific
Asia Pacific Internet Development Trust (APIDT) and Google today announced new long-term agreements to unlock transformative opportunities for the Research and Education (R&E) community across the Pacific region through the Arterial Research and Education Network in Asia Pacific (ARENA-PAC).
Together with the Pacific Connect initiative, these strategic agreements mark a significant milestone in supporting open collaboration and advancing reliable, resilient, high-speed connectivity for research and education (R&E) institutions throughout the Pacific. The initiative will enhance the region’s ability to engage in international research collaboration, share large-scale datasets, promote open science, and advance learning opportunities for Pacific islanders.
APIDT’s purchase of capacity on Pacific Connect will equip the ARENA-PAC network with the high-speed, low-latency connectivity necessary to support local and international research and education activities. This new capacity will also bring several key advantages to the network, such as:
- Accelerating data-intensive research as it enables research and academic institutions to rapidly share and transfer massive datasets for complex and immediate data processing, thereby advancing science, healthcare and research outcomes.
- Enhancing real-time global collaboration and expanded digital learning and resource access as researchers and educators can engage in seamless, real-time collaboration. This has the potential to allow for richer online educational and cultural content delivery, real-time health and medical consultations with remote specialists, and the co-creation of massive open educational resources across the Pacific.
“By joining forces with Google to add new capacity to our network in the Pacific region, we will achieve inclusive, resilient, and high-performance connectivity that will benefit the R&E community in the region,” said Professor Jun Murai, CCRC, Keio University, Founder of WIDE Project and Director of APIDT. “This collaboration aligns perfectly with our mission to foster availability, affordability, and accessibility of R&E networks in the region.”
“Collaborating with the Asia Pacific Internet Development Trust (APIDT) to provide capacity on Pacific Connect is a step forward in Google’s mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful,” said Brian Quigley, VP, Global Infrastructure, Google Cloud. “This unique initiative is an important example of how our joint efforts can deliver increased reach, lower latency and a more reliable internet for research and education institutions throughout Asia Pacific.”
Pacific Connect is a multi-stakeholder initiative including Google and a number of local and regional participants to create new submarine cable infrastructure across the Pacific. Pacific Connect aims to extend the reach of internet infrastructure, fostering new connections for island nations to bridge the historical digital connectivity divide, strengthen the resiliency of Pacific communications and ensure the reliability of the region’s subsea cable infrastructure.
In April 2024, Google announced an investment in digital connectivity to Japan through an expansion of the Pacific Connect initiative, which includes the Humboldt, TPU, Bulikula, Halaihai, Honomoana, Tabua, Proa and Taihei subsea cables. With new fiber-optic routes between the U.S. and Japan, this supports Google’s Japan Digitization Initiative, while improving the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity between the U.S., Japan, and multiple Pacific Island countries and territories.
The collaboration strengthens APIDT’s mission to advance Internet development across Asia Pacific, and aligns with Google’s efforts to advance infrastructure that expands the reach and reduces the digital divide in communities globally.
About The Pacific Internet Development Trust
The Asia Pacific Internet Development Trust (APIDT) is a joint initiative of the WIDE Project and APNIC, established to fund Internet development initiatives in the Asia Pacific region, including capacity building and advancement of Internet infrastructure. APIDT has been investing in the backbone networks for R&E through the Arterial Research and Educational Network in the Asia Pacific (ARENA-PAC), which consists of several 100Gbps links between Guam, Tokyo, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. The WIDE Project operates the ARENA-PAC, and various capacity-building programs are led by SOI Asia, the inter-university R&E community in the AP region, in collaboration with ARENA-PAC. The headquarters of ARENA-PAC and SOI Asia are both hosted by the Cyber Civilization Research Center (CCRC) at Keio University.