Asia Direct Cable Consortium to build new Asia Pacific submarine cable

Tokyo, June 11, 2020 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced that the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) Consortium is building a high-performance submarine cable connecting China (Hong Kong SAR and Guangdong Province), Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The consortium has selected NEC to construct the 9,400-kilometer long ADC cable, which is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2022.

The cable will feature multiple pairs of high capacity optical fibers and is designed to carry more than 140 Tbps of traffic, enabling high capacity transmission of data across the East and Southeast Asian regions. ADC’s high capacity allows it to support increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications which are driven by technological advancements in 5G, the cloud, the Internet-of-Things and Artificial Intelligence. This will further enhance the expansion of communications networks in the region.

"The ADC system provides the highest cable capacity and necessary diversity for Asia’s key information hubs, which will enable carriers and service providers to better plan their networks and services for a sustainable development," said Chang Weiguo, one of the ADC Co-Chairs from China Telecom.

ADC Co-Chair, Mr. Koji Ishii of SoftBank also said, "This new system will contribute to drive the Asian ICT business growth as one of the core infrastructure in the region and to meet the evolving marketplace. As a leading submarine cable system vendor, NEC has successfully provided many trans-Asia submarine cable systems, making the company the most reliable choice for the ADC supply partner."

"As the supplier of the ADC Cable, NEC continues to support critical infrastructure in Asia. This advanced optical fiber submarine cable system will provide seamless connectivity to the countries it lands in and the regions it services," said Atsushi Kuwahara, General Manager, Submarine Network Division, NEC Corporation. "NEC is impressed by the level of commitment from members of the ADC Consortium, and will fully capitalize on our regional expertise to support ADC and to ensure the successful completion of this project."