Amazon Web Services has confirmed plans to build a new subsea cable route connecting the United States with Ireland. The system, named Fastnet, will run from Maryland to County Cork and is scheduled to enter service in 2028. AWS states that the link will support more than 320 terabits per second of capacity. In practical terms, that equals roughly 12.5 million high definition streams or transmitting the entire digitized Library of Congress several times per second.
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A strategic layer of redundancy
Fastnet is designed to strengthen the resilience of AWS’s largely east coast focused subsea network. The new system will act as a backup path and reduce exposure to accidental cuts, natural events, or intentional sabotage. Interest in network resilience has risen in recent years as geopolitical risks have placed more attention on undersea infrastructure.
The company plans to bury the cable at about 1.5 metres below the seabed and use extra armour near shore landings. Despite its high capacity design, the physical cable is roughly the size of a garden hose.
Flexibility through optical switching
AWS says Fastnet will use an optical switching branching unit that allows operators to adjust routing and add new landing points in the future. That flexibility gives AWS room to scale the system as demand grows. Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the project, stating that the link will position Ireland as a central entry point for European submarine telecommunications traffic.
A wider network push
Fastnet adds to Amazon’s nine million kilometre global fiber footprint and multiple transcontinental routes. The announcement also aligns with AWS’s ongoing expansion, which includes plans for ten new Availability Zones and three new Regions.
Amazon highlighted the importance of secure and reliable long distance connectivity, noting that modern cloud services depend on consistent paths for data to move between continents. Fastnet is intended to support that requirement by adding both capacity and redundancy to an already dense network.
