AWS announces Fastnet, a dedicated subsea cable between the US and Ireland

2025-11-04 · Publisher : AWS · Domain : Cloud & DevOps

AWS announces Fastnet, a dedicated transatlantic cable linking Maryland to County Cork, with a design capacity of more than 320 Tbps. It is due to enter service in 2028 and provide a backup route for its network.

### What changes On 4 November 2025, Amazon Web Services announces Fastnet, a dedicated transatlantic subsea fiber-optic cable system connecting Maryland (United States) to County Cork (Ireland). It is due to be operational in 2028. Fastnet integrates into AWS's global network to provide new data pathways for cloud and AI services between North America and Europe. ### Key facts - Design capacity of more than 320 terabits per second, according to AWS. - Two landing points chosen to depart from traditional cable corridors, to provide route diversity if other cables are damaged. - An optical switching branching unit, designed to redirect data to future landing points as demand evolves. - Reinforced armoring with extra layers of steel wire near the coast, to withstand natural and human activity. - Integration into the AWS network, which monitors traffic in real time and chooses the most available route, unlike the public internet. - AWS illustrates this capacity with the simultaneous streaming of 12.5 million high-definition films. ### Why it matters Subsea links are a fragile point in multi-Region cloud architectures: a cut between Europe and the US can degrade latency and availability. By owning its own cables, AWS controls routing and resilience between Regions. For architects, it is a resilience argument, but it does not replace multi-zone and multi-Region application design. ### Takeaway AWS invests in its own transatlantic cables: the hyperscaler increasingly controls its network, beyond data centers.

Tags : AWS, Cloud, Hyperscaler, Europe, États-Unis