A new Australia-New Zealand subsea cable will be built.

Dubbed the SX Tasman Express, the project will see involvement from Southern Cross Cables (SCS), Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), and OMS Group. Two landing stations - Sydney and Auckland - will be constructed.

It will deliver 400Tbps of capacity across 16 fiber pairs.

SCS will be in charge of cable landing stations, and ASN and OMS will be in charge of marine installation.

Ronnie Lim, CEO of OMS, said that “this partnership underscores [OMS’] commitment to shaping the future of digital infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific. By deploying the SX-TX system, we are not only reinforcing vital links between Australia and New Zealand but also strengthening the backbone of regional connectivity.”

SCS, an Australasian supplier, currently operates nine cable stations: two each in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and the US mainland, and one in Fiji. It also operates the Southern Cross Cable Network and Southern Cross Next cables linking the US to Australia.

Founded in the late 1800s, ASN, which was recently bought by the French government, has installed more than 750,000km of submarine cables worldwide.

OMS Group is a Malaysia-based company specializing in subsea infrastructure. Private equity firm KKR invested $400m into the firm in October 2023.

New Zealand is currently connected to seven subsea cables. Three of these - Aqualink, Cook Strait, Nelson-Levin - are domestic, and the remaining four - Hawaiki, Tasman Global Access Cable, and the two operated by Southern Cross - connect the island nation to various Pacific islands, Australia, and the American West Coast.