On September 3, 2026, Firmus, an Australian provider of AI infrastructure, and SUBCO, a developer of submarine cables, formalized a landmark agreement spanning 25 years and valued at US$300 million (A$418 million). The pact positions Firmus as the primary customer for SUBCO's forthcoming APX East (Asia Pacific Express East) subsea cable linking the Asia-Pacific region to North America, with Firmus securing access to as much as 150 Terabits per second (Tbps) of dedicated international bandwidth.

The APX East system is slated to begin commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2028. Once operational, it will function as a direct connection between Firmus' distributed AI compute centers—including renewable-powered facilities in Tasmania and South Australia—and major U.S. hyperscalers and AI-focused technology companies.

Cable Design and Technical Specifications

SUBCO engineered APX East as Australia's first independently owned, high-speed international subsea cable. The system spans approximately 13,000 kilometers and was designed to address the connectivity demands of more than 3 gigawatts of Australian AI compute capacity expected to come online before 2028, marking a significant advancement in trans-Pacific submarine cable technology.

A key technical advantage of APX East lies in its optical amplification design, which reduces power consumption per unit by roughly 20 percent. This efficiency allows the system to traverse the entire ~13,000 km distance across the ocean floor without intermediate landing points or power regeneration stations in Hawaii.

By routing entirely through deep ocean rather than coastal waters, APX East sidesteps environmental and permitting challenges that typically delay cable projects. This all-deepwater path supports the Q4 2028 target for commercial readiness, enabling the system to serve surging regional AI compute demand before competing cable builds launch in 2029–2030.

SUBCO has not yet filed formal applications for an FCC Submarine Cable Landing License. The company intends to enter the U.S. regulatory process 18 to 24 months before the Q4 2028 target date, triggering the mandatory interagency review conducted by Team Telecom.

AI Token Export and Distributed Processing

The 150 Tbps capacity reservation reflects a fundamental change in subsea cable economics, driven by the distributed training and inference of large language models. Rather than moving raw energy or traditional cloud data, the bandwidth will carry processed AI outputs—referred to as "tokens"—as a major export product.

Firmus is building its Project Southgate infrastructure, a network of liquid-cooled AI compute facilities spread across regional Australia. These centers, located in areas such as Tasmania and South Australia, exploit abundant low-cost renewable energy to power dense GPU clusters for AI model processing.

The 150 Tbps APX East connection provides the ultra-low latency pathway required to stream continuous flows of processed tokens directly to U.S.-based customers, treating AI-generated output as a tradeable commodity rather than a service.

Domestic Network Integration

The APX East trans-Pacific system integrates with a broader domestic subsea fiber network that Firmus and SUBCO are developing across Australia:

  • Bernacchi-1 Subsea Link: Backed by Firmus, this Bass Strait cable will connect Northern Tasmania directly to SUBCO's mainland SMAP (Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth) network, delivering over 60 Tbps of initial regional backhaul capacity.
  • Sydney Cable Hub Synergy: Bernacchi-1 creates a direct pathway into Sydney, establishing an unbroken physical route from Tasmanian AI data centers onto the APX East trans-Pacific express connection to the United States.

Company Profiles

Firmus operates as an Australian AI infrastructure platform company. The firm specializes in immersion-cooled, vertically integrated AI Factories that combine energy generation, data center design, GPU compute resources, and global subsea connectivity into a single offering. A Firmus representative stated: "Securing up to 150 terabits per second of dedicated capacity gives us the scale and performance to connect Australian AI infrastructure directly with the United States."

SUBCO is an independent Australian submarine cable developer that has built or is building major systems including INDIGO West, INDIGO Central, the Oman Australia Cable (OAC), and the mainland SMAP system. According to SUBCO leadership: "With millions of AI GPUs planned across the region in the next two to three years, generating petabits of tokens per second, AI Factories are front and centre of that need."