Google and Liquid Intelligent Technologies have partnered to build a cable route dubbed Umoja. With its landing point in Kenya, the Umoja submarine cable system will establish an east-west connection across Africa, extending onwards to Australia. The route traverses Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and culminates in South Africa, strategically incorporating a Google Cloud region along the path.
Umoja joins forces with Equiano under the Africa Connect banner. Equiano submarine cable is a 15,000-kilometer Google owned internet cable that runs along the west coast of Africa from Portugal to South Africa.
Liquid’s CTIO, Ben Roberts, posted, “And now a game changer for South – South Connectivity. Lisbon to Nairobi to Perth via the absolute shortest path, low latency networks enabling us to play and work.“
In the new collaborative effort, Umoja will provide African nations with a more dependable connection not only amongst themselves but also with the wider world. The new route independent of existing pathways will offer an alternative network for a region perennially hit by critical outages.
Strive Masiyiwa, Chairman and founder of Liquid said, “Africa’s major cities including Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali, Lubumbashi, Lusaka, and Harare will no longer be hard-to-reach endpoints remote from the coastal landing sites that connect Africa to the world. They are now stations on a data superhighway that can carry thousands of times more traffic than currently reaches here.”
READ: Liquid Technologies to Offer African Businesses LEO Satellite Service
Google to Secure eCitizen
In addition, Google is set to work with the Kenyan Ministry of ICT to bolster cybersecurity and cultivate data-driven innovation.
Kenya’s Department of Immigration & Citizen Services is considering Google Cloud’s CyberShield and Mandiant’s security expertise to fortify the eCitizen platform. CyberShield enables governments to build stronger defences against cyber threats and safeguard online infrastructure.
“Access to the latest technology, supported by reliable and resilient digital infrastructure, is critical to growing economic opportunity. This is a meaningful moment for Kenya’s digital transformation journey,” said Meg Whitman, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya.
