The Taihei subsea cable connects Japan to Hawaii.

Taihei is the Japanese word for both “peace” and “Pacific Ocean,”

The Taihei subsea cable is part of Google's North Pacific Connect initiative, which Google announced on 10^th April 2024 amid a visit to the U.S. by the Japanese prime minister to boost the U.S.-Japan Alliance. 

Under the North Pacific Connect initiative, Google commits $1 billion investment in digital connectivity for the North Pacific Connect, which expands the Pacific Connect Initiative, with NEC, to improve digital communications infrastructure between the United States, Japan and Pacific Island Nations.

In addition to the Taihei subsea cable, the North Pacific Connect initiative includes the Proa subsea cable connecting Japan,  the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam, and an interlink cable connecting Hawaii, the CNMI, and Guam. This interlink connects the transpacific routes, improving their reliability and reducing latency for users in the Pacific Islands and around the world.

The North Pacific Connect initiative expands Google's Pacific Connect initiative which comprises the South Pacific Connect and the Central Pacific Connect initiatives announced by Google in November 2023 and January 2024 respectively.

Google partners with KDDI, ARTERIA, Citadel Pacific, and the CNMI for the North Pacific Connect initiative. 

Among the parters, Citadel Pacific Ltd. is a diversified private holding company with operations in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, the Republic of Palau, the CNMI, and the US Territory of Guam. CITADEL is owned by the Delgado family of the Philippines. Citadel Pacific is believed to collaborate with Google for landing services in the CNMI (and possibly in Guam as well).

Japanese ARTERIA Networks Corportation supports Google to provide landing facilities in Takahagi, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Google has landed at the Takahagi cable landing station its Topaz subsea cable connecting Japan and Canada.

KDDI supports Google as the landing partner in Shima, Japan, for the landing of the Proa subsea cable. KDDI has landed FASTER subsea cable at the Shima cable landing station, with Google as a member of the FASTER consortium. KDDI is also the landing party for Google's Topaz cable system to land the Topaz cable in Shima.

Japanese NEC is the supplier for both Proa and Taihei subsea cables.

The Taihei cabele system is privately owned and controlled by Google, through multiple subsidiaries:

• Starfish Infrastructure Inc. (Starfish), a Delaware company, holds 100% of the equity and voting interests in the portion in U.S. territory;
• Sea Fan Singapore Infrastructure Pte. Ltd. (Sea Fan), a Singapore company, holds 100% of the equity and voting interests in the portion in international waters; and
• Seabream Infrastructure G.K. (Seabream), a Japan company, holds 100% of the equity and voting interests in the portion in Japan
  territory.
• Starfish, Sea Fan, and Seabream are all indirect, wholly-owned subsidiaries of Google LLC.

The Taihei cable system lands at:

• the UH West Oʻahu CLS , a newly built cable landing station in the University of Hawaii West O‘ahu campus, owned by Humuhumu Services LLC, a wholly owned, special-purpose subsidiary of Google LLC.
• Hitachi City CLS, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan: an existing cable landing station owned by Hitachi, Ltd. (Hitachi), a Japan company.

Hitachi City in Ibaraki Prefecture is the historic industrial headquarters of Hitachi, Ltd., where the conglomerate maintains extensive high-voltage, fiber-optic manufacturing, and industrial landing infrastructure. By utilizing an existing Hitachi-owned facility for Taihei alongside ARTERIA’s Takahagi station for Topaz, Google establishes physical building-level redundancy within the Ibaraki landing zone—preventing a single point of failure north of Tokyo while routing transpacific traffic directly into inland data center clusters.

The Taihei cable system consists of a single segment between the ARTERIA Networks' Takahagi Cable Landing Station in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan and the Hawaiian island of Oahu, spanning approximately 7,000 km long.

The Taihei cable system is designed with 16 fiber pairs and a minimum design capacity of approximately 19 Tbps per fiber pair using current technology.

Google intends to install and test the Taihei cable system in US waters starting in the fourth quarter of 2026 and commence commercial operation of the US landing points of the system in the second quarter of 2027.