Keppel Ltd. announced that the Bifrost Cable System (Bifrost) has reached its Ready for Service (RFS) status and will begin carrying commercial traffic in the coming weeks.
Bifrost is the first subsea cable system to directly connect Singapore and the west coast of the United States through Indonesia. Spanning more than 20,000 kilometers, it is designed to support artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, cloud platforms, and digital services, with a round-trip latency of under 165 milliseconds between Singapore and the United States. The new route across the Pacific adds over 260 terabits per second of capacity and strengthens the reliability of one of the busiest digital corridors in the world.
“This landmark project will bolster digital connectivity between Southeast Asia and the USA,” said Manjot Singh Mann, CEO, Connectivity, Keppel. “The Bifrost Cable System will reinforce Singapore’s position as a leading digital hub in Asia and support the region’s rapidly growing digital economy.”
Keppel holds five of the 12 fiber pairs in the system, owned jointly with private fund co-investors through a 40-60 joint venture.
The system lands in Singapore, Guam, and Grover Beach, California, with branching units extending to Jakarta and Manado in Indonesia, Davao in the Philippines, and Winema, Oregon. These connections enable flexible traffic routing and strong regional interconnection.
In the Philippines, broadband and technology provider Converge ICT Solutions Inc. serves as the landing party in Davao.
“The Philippines is in a prime location being in the centre of the region, so this critical digital infrastructure, the Bifrost Cable System, is envisioned to support the booming connectivity needs of the Asia-Pacific region and provide an important direct link with the US,” said Dennis Anthony Uy, CEO of Converge. “This will not only boost the company’s international bandwidth capacity, but for the Philippines, it will mean redundancy and diversity in network infrastructure to power the country’s digital journeys.”
The system was built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), a developer of undersea cable systems.
“Reaching this new milestone is a testament to the hard work of ASN teams working hand in hand with our client to bring Bifrost to Ready for Service,” said Alain Biston, CEO of ASN.
With operations set to begin soon, Bifrost is expected to help support digital growth, improve network resilience, and strengthen global data exchange.