India Readies to Connect With China’s Digital One Belt, One Road Project

India, which opposes China’s One Belt, One Road, will soon connect with another of China’s ambitious projects, the digital version of the Silk Road. Indian telecom company Reliance Jio launched the India leg of 25,000 km Asia-Africa-Europe (AAE-1) submarine cable system on Thursday.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — The AAE-1 cable system deploys state-of-the-art 100 Gbps transmission technology, with a minimum design capacity of 40 Terabytes per second. It will not have a landing station in Mumbai.

"We are excited to participate in the launch and deliver the cable landing in Mumbai at the time when India's data traffic continues its accelerated data consumption and growth," Jio president Mathew Oommen said.

AAE-1, the world's largest submarine cable system, was initiated in 2011 by China's state-owned telecom company China Unicom, which ventures to link 19 nations and regions across Asia, Africa and Europe. It is the longest 100Gbps technology based submarine system, which stretches over 25,000 km from Marseille, France to Hong Kong.

China had started work on the world's longest submarine cables system to provide internet infrastructure to facilitate the strategy of China's One Belt, One Road initiative. It has the blessings of many companies: China Unicom, CIL (HyalRoute), Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat, GT5L, Mobily, Omantel, Ooredoo, OTEG, PCCW, PTCL, Reliance Jio, Retelit, Telecom Egypt, TeleYemen, TOT, Viettel, VNPT and VTC.

The AAE-1 connects Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, with Malaysia and Singapore, then onwards to Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France.