Premier Peter Malinauskas has officially welcomed the arrival of the world's largest-capacity cable laying ship, Ile d'Yeu to Adelaide today to start construction on South Australia's first-ever subsea data cable.
The data cable, which will connect to Adelaide at West Beach will significantly enhance South Australia's digital connection to other Australian and global markets.
The new system will deliver faster, more secure and reliable data capacity to grow the state's economy and more jobs in data intensive industries like defence, space, AI and advanced manufacturing.
Premier Malinauskas inspected the vessel in Port Adelaide with Bevan Slattery, Founder and CEO of Australian digital infrastructure company SUBCO that is building the new $400 million, 5,000 km SMAP (Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth) cable system.
Digital connectivity is critical for South Australia, and will importantly assist key innovation, machine learning and artificial intelligence development opportunity in the state.
The SMAP submarine can provide a 400 Terabit-per-second using a subsea 16 fibre pair fully armoured long haul cable system.
This high-speed connection underpins the continuing development of sovereign capability in AI and Machine Learning as well as other critical technology and digital services.
It will also support the South Australian Government's desire to see large capacity data centre development in the state, leveraging upon the state's significant renewable energy resources, and nation leading planning system.
Adelaide is home to the world-renowned Australian Institute for Machine Learning, with the South Australian Government being a foundational investor.
The South Australian Government is also a foundational investor in Responsible AI Research Centre, a national collaboration between CSIRO, University of Adelaide the Government of South Australia.
South Australia has appointed an Assistant Minister for AI and the Digital Economy and has established Australia's first Office for AI earlier this year.
As put by Peter Malinauskas
This is a landmark moment for South Australia.
For the first time our state will be directly connected to the global digital ecosystem via Australia's newest and most advanced transcontinental subsea cable system.
This will be a gamechanger for South Australian businesses especially in our growing data-intensive industries like defence, energy, space and manufacturing.
As we see more South Australian businesses building their digital capabilities it is critical we continue to attract private sector investment like SUBCO's SMAP cable to underpin our state's future economic growth and jobs.
As put by Michael Brown
This infrastructure will play a vital role in supporting South Australian businesses in their digital expansion.
The data cable will enhance our digital connection to global markets, and assist in the State's key innovation, machine learning and artificial intelligence development.
This development will unlock new investment in data centres and other digital infrastructure.
As put by SUBCO Founder/CEO Bevan Slattery
Following the successful Perth landing in July, we will now begin building the digital infrastructure for the Adelaide connection of the SMAP cable.
SMAP will be the first long-haul cable to directly link four of Australia's capital cities, and the first hyper cable of its kind deployed on Australian shores.
SUBCO is a proud 100 percent Aussie owned and operated company and we are excited to be building this world-class digital infrastructure in South Australia.
