“This is the best you can get at this moment,” says Alexander van den Hil of SURF, the ICT cooperative association of Dutch educational and research institutions. The connectivity between London and Singapore covers a distance of approximately 13,000 kilometers and operates across no fewer than 11 time zones. Despite its enormous range, the 100-gigabit connectivity is extremely fast; between a thousand and ten thousand times faster than a regular home connection.

Gap

Such a fast connectivity between Europe and Asia didn’t exist until now; the link was routed via the United States. “The launch of CAE-1 made us less dependent on the US, and we’ve managed to close the gap between Europe and Asia,” Van den Hil says.

The shorter the distance the better. It is therefore expected that the connectivity will pave the way for “technological accomplishments and scientific discoveries.” By way of example, Van den Hil mentions the Square Kilometre Array project in Australia, an international effort to place radio telescopes on large fields that will make it possible to conduct research on the early universe. “Researchers in Europe will have access to data and discover new celestial bodies, for instance.”

Collaborating

But students of institutions that are part of the SURF cooperative will also profit from the fast network connectivity, as will European research institutions with campuses in Asia.

“What we at SURF are particularly excited about, is that this new connectivity is the result of a collaboration between research networks in Europe and Asia, and Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the Scandinavian countries,” Van den Hil says. “This way, we’ve accomplished much more together than we ever could have on our own.” Every connected country can use the network connectivity.