Amazon’s New Subsea Cable Connects Maryland to Ireland.. and Plugs into AWS’s Global Cloud
The 3,800-mile Fastnet system is about speed, resilience, and keeping the cloud grounded in local communities.
- Fastnet connects Maryland, U.S., and County Cork, Ireland
- System delivers over 320 terabits per second capacity
- Project aims to enhance network resilience and community support
Amazon Web Services is laying new pipes under the Atlantic—digital ones. The company has announced Fastnet, a high-capacity subsea fiber optic cable that will stretch from Maryland’s Eastern Shore to County Cork, Ireland. The system, expected to go live in 2028, is designed to move data at more than 320 terabits per second.
That’s enough bandwidth to stream 12.5 million HD films at once—or, as AWS puts it, transfer the entire Library of Congress three times a second. The real goal, though, isn’t cinematic overload—it’s cloud resilience. Fastnet is part of Amazon’s broader push to build out infrastructure that can route data quickly and reroute it just as fast when needed.
More than speed
The cable will land at two strategic points on either side of the Atlantic, giving AWS route diversity in case of disruptions elsewhere. That’s increasingly important as cloud workloads scale and undersea cables—often built years ago—hit capacity or get disrupted by shipping traffic, earthquakes, or aging tech.
“This project represents a vote of confidence in Ireland’s digital future,” said Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Maryland Governor Wes Moore called it “bigger than broadband”—a statement that hints at the geopolitical and economic weight large-scale connectivity projects now carry.
Cloud infrastructure meets local politics
Alongside the cable, AWS is setting up Community Benefit Funds in both Maryland and Cork. These are designed to support local programs tied to education, workforce development, and digital equity—an increasingly standard move when tech companies build major infrastructure near communities that may not directly benefit from it.
Fastnet is Amazon’s first subsea cable in Maryland and adds to a growing list of tech-led fibre systems reshaping global internet routes. For AWS, it’s another piece of the company’s strategy to control more of its network stack—not just the data centres and cloud services, but the cables between continents.
As cloud computing becomes more central to business, defence, and communications, companies like Amazon are treating the ocean floor less like a geographic boundary and more like real estate. Fastnet doesn’t just connect Maryland and Ireland—it plugs both into a data infrastructure that’s becoming as vital as power or water.
