Explained: Meta’s 8,000 km ‘Candle’ Cable That Signals a Renewed Digital Push in Asia Pacific

New Delhi: Meta’s announcement of Candle, a new 8,000 kilometre subsea cable system linking six Asian economies — Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore — marks one of the most significant digital infrastructure investments in the Asia Pacific region this decade. Slated to launch in 2028 with an estimated capacity of 570 terabits per second (Tbps), Candle will be the largest capacity subsea cable in the region and a cornerstone of Meta’s broader effort to expand high speed connectivity for more than 580 million people across East and Southeast Asia. 

With this move, the US tech giant, which operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, is consolidating its presence in the world’s fastest growing internet market. Asia Pacific (APAC), home to over 58 percent of global internet users, sits at the center of the digital economy’s next growth wave. From AI innovation to cloud services and e-commerce logistics, the region’s economic bandwidth increasingly depends on physical bandwidth, the networks of cables beneath oceans that carry 99 percent of intercontinental data traffic. 

Expanding Digital Infrastructure for Asia’s Internet Future

Meta has positioned Candle as a next generation system built with 24 fibre pair technology, capable of achieving bandwidth comparable to its existing high capacity cable Anjana. This system will not only enhance regional data exchange but also improve redundancy, speed, and reliability for billions of users accessing Meta’s applications and AI driven services. The company described Candle as essential to ensuring “enough capacity and resilience to enable rich online experiences for people all over the world.”

Meta is developing Candle in collaboration with regional telecommunications operators, continuing a strategy of joint ventures and shared infrastructure that lowers deployment costs and aligns digital development goals with regional telecom policies. By spreading its subsea investments across multiple routes, the company ensures resilience against physical disruptions, geopolitical tensions, or single route failures, an increasingly vital concern in Asia’s congested digital corridors.

The Candle project adds to a growing network of subsea investments that Meta has spearheaded over the past five years, including the Bifrost, Echo, and Apricot cable systems, each serving as complementary arteries in a vast transpacific network. The Bifrost cable is now operational, connecting Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the United States, with an extension to Mexico planned by 2026. The system adds more than 260 Tbps of redundancy to the transpacific route, charting a different path from existing corridors to reduce congestion.

Echo currently delivers 260 Tbps between Guam and California, with provisions for future extensions deeper into Asia. Meanwhile, Apricot, which spans 12,000 kilometres, links Japan, Taiwan, and Guam and will extend to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore with a total planned capacity of 290 Tbps. Collectively, these cables create a robust multi route system designed to sustain Meta’s services as demand for AI, immersive media, and cloud applications explodes.

The Geoeconomic Context: Competing for Asia’s Data Corridors

Meta’s string of subsea projects reflects a larger geopolitical and geoeconomic shift. Asia Pacific is not only the largest user base in the world but also the most contested zone for digital infrastructure influence. The region’s countries are racing to build digital sovereignty through homegrown technology ecosystems even as American, Chinese, and Japanese tech giants expand their territorial presence through data cables, cloud centers, and AI infrastructure. 

By 2028, Asia Pacific’s digital economy is projected to exceed $2 trillion, fueled by high mobile penetration, rising data consumption, and advancing AI platforms. Yet this growth depends on foundational infrastructure. Subsea cables like Candle are critical arteries of this expansion, determining latency, cloud service availability, and ultimately, economic competitiveness.

Meta’s announcement also comes as governments across the region strengthen regulations over data transfer, cybersecurity, and network ownership. While some nations are tightening restrictions on foreign ownership of digital assets, others, like Singapore and Indonesia, are actively courting tech investment to position themselves as regional data hubs. Candle’s six country footprint suggests a highly strategic alignment, linking advanced digital economies like Japan and Singapore with emerging markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where internet usage has surged despite infrastructural constraints.

Catalysts for AI and New Markets

Another vital dimension to Meta’s investment is its integration with artificial intelligence deployment. High capacity subsea cables form the physical base for AI model training, data retrieval, and global content distribution. As Meta develops multilingual AI tools, including ongoing recruitment efforts to train Hindi language AI chatbots for Indian users, the need for scalable bandwidth becomes critical.

According to Meta, these infrastructure projects will not only sustain current traffic but also “support delivery of AI driven products and services to billions of users.” The company’s regional expansion hence aligns with the global shift toward AI centric platform ecosystems, where data connectivity directly determines market access.

Meta’s APAC focus also echoes its Project Waterworth, a multi continent subsea initiative announced earlier this year, which aims to connect landing points across five continents by the decade’s end. Combined with the 2Africa cable, which links India, the Middle East, and Europe, Meta’s strategy positions it as one of the most influential builders of private digital highways around the planet.

Reasserting American Digital Presence Despite Backflips by the White House

For Washington, Meta’s growing cable network underscores a renewed commercial and strategic commitment to Asia, even as the White House continues to oscillate in its posture toward India. Despite political hesitations and shifting diplomatic tones, Silicon Valley’s infrastructure investments reveal the persistence of America’s digital ambition in the region. For Meta, systems like Candle are not just about bandwidth but about securing presence where the next billion users live -- and India remains central to that calculus. The move signals that, regardless of geopolitical backflips, U.S. technology giants are doubling down on long-term engagement with the Indian consumer base, weaving themselves deeper into the region’s digital supply chain and everyday connectivity fabric.

ALSO READ: Despite Trump Tariffs, India Remains Fastest Growing Economy: World Bank