The Government took a victory lap on Friday to celebrate attracting an undersea cable being built by Google.

Walter Roban, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Home Affairs, laid out the specifications of the cable and recounted the work that went into getting the project over the line.

New information in the document included the fact that the cable, which is called Nuvem, will have two landing points: Devonshire Bay and Annie’s Bay, St George’s.

Other new information includes an estimate of 10 to 20 direct jobs created by the Google landing stations.

The new cable was announced on Monday by the Bermuda Business Development Agency and Google.

Nuvem will run between South Carolina and Portugal and will be the first cable running directly from Bermuda to continental Europe.

The capacity of the cable was not disclosed but estimates in tech publications suggest almost 500 terabits per second using current technology.

Mr Roban said that efforts to attract the project began in earnest four years ago with the tabling of the Submarine Communications Cables Act 2020.

Bermuda has been targeting a number of companies in the development of its submarine cable strategy, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon, he added.

Mr Roban said that the Government had been working for months to come to an agreement with Google on the building of Nuvem, with all the groundwork being done under the terms of a confidentiality agreement.

He noted that the island has five submarine cables, three that are ageing, one that is being upgraded and one that has been upgraded.

Marine route surveys for Nuvem will start at the end of 2023 and work will be completed in 2026. Land acquisition will be required, according to the statement, and it will be a freehold transaction.

“A significant cable landing station is planned to be built, which will enable multiple cable landings. The cable landing station will be an open station available for any other cable to land in Bermuda including future additional Google cables,” Mr Roban said.

“This is more than a cable landing just passing through Bermuda, it will provide a backbone for a wider strategy of a digital port with all the requirements for supporting data and digital infrastructure.”

He added that the cable would “establish Bermuda as the mid-Atlantic hub and would provide reduced latency in communications with Europe and the Americas. This will also be a new route for Bermuda with direct connectivity to Europe.”

He said the cable would act as a magnet to attract other players in the communication and tech industries and provide communications redundancy for the island.

The minister also mentioned the need for another three megawatts of electricity generating capacity and cabling required for distribution.

Since the announcement of the cable, TeleGeography has added Nuvem to its Submarine Cable Map product.