Hibernia Atlantic, owner and operator of multiple trans-Atlantic submarine cables, announced a plan to build a new low-latency cable across the Atlantic that will connect New York and London. The route, called Project Express, is expected to offer high-frequency traders latencies that are less than 60 milliseconds, according to a Hibernia news release.

In addition to connectivity between New York and London, the cable will also offer access to other financial markets, such as Frankfurt, Chicago and Toronto. The new trans-Atlantic cable will strengthen the company’s Global Financial Network, which currently connects hundreds of banks and financial exchanges around the world.

Hibernia CEO Bjarni Thovardarson said demand for low-latency routs has growth exponentially over the past several years. ""Project Express will offer the lowest latency from New York to London and provide demanding customers the speed and accuracy they require," he said in a statement.

The new submarine network will at first provide 40G connectivity, with plans to upgrade to 100G in the future. According to Hibernia, Express will be a new, all-marine, four-fiber-pair optic cable system.

Hibernia’s VP of Business Development Mike Saunders said the company had narrowed down its selection of vendors to contract for the project and was ready to move forward. "Construction is second nature to Hibernia, having just completed another submarine cable, landing station and terrestrial network into Northern Ireland," he said.

In addition to the aforementioned networks, Hibernia owns and operates two more trans-Atlantic cable systems.

First phase of construction – expected to be completed by the summer of 2012 – will connect the County of Somerset in the UK to Halifax in Canada, where the new cable will connect to the company’s existing cable between Halifax and New York.