Globe Telecom Joins Candle Submarine Cable Consortium as Investor and Landing Party

Why It Matters

Candle expands Asia’s subsea infrastructure, giving carriers like Globe a high‑capacity, low‑latency path essential for 5G, AI and cloud services, while strengthening the Philippines’ global connectivity and economic competitiveness.

Key Takeaways

• Candle cable offers up to 570 Tbps total capacity
• Globe will finance and build a new landing station in Batangas
• The 8,000‑km system connects six Asian markets, enhancing redundancy
• Candle’s 24 fibre‑pair design lowers latency for 5G and AI traffic
• Project aligns with Philippines’ Cloud First policy and regional digitisation goals

Pulse Analysis

The Candle submarine cable system represents a strategic upgrade to Asia’s undersea network fabric. Spanning roughly 8,000 kilometres and linking six key economies, the consortium’s 24‑fibre‑pair architecture delivers an unprecedented 570 terabits per second of capacity. This bandwidth surge is designed to meet the explosive data demands driven by 5G rollouts and generative‑AI workloads, while the diversified routing reduces latency and provides critical redundancy against cable cuts or geopolitical disruptions.

Globe Telecom’s participation as both investor and landing‑party underscores the Philippines’ push to become a regional digital hub. By funding a new landing station in Batangas, Globe not only expands its own network reach but also aligns with the government’s Cloud‑First initiative, which calls for multiple subsea paths and robust international gateways. The Batangas hub complements Globe’s existing Baler station, creating a dual‑landing architecture that enhances resilience and offers carriers more routing options for cross‑border traffic, cloud migration and edge‑computing services.

For the broader telecom market, Candle intensifies competition among existing cables such as SEA‑ME‑WAN and the upcoming Pacific‑Asia routes. Carriers and cloud providers stand to benefit from lower latency paths, enabling real‑time analytics, seamless collaboration, and faster content delivery across the region. As data consumption continues to outpace supply, projects like Candle will be pivotal in sustaining growth, attracting foreign investment, and positioning Asia as a leader in next‑generation digital infrastructure.

Deal Summary

Philippines telecom operator Globe Telecom announced it has joined the Candle submarine cable consortium as an investor and landing party, committing to finance and build a new landing station in Batangas. The consortium, which includes SoftBank, Meta, IPS Inc, TM Technology Services and PT XLSmart Telecom, aims to launch an 8,000‑km cable system with 570 Tbps capacity by 2028. Globe’s participation will boost connectivity across Asia and support the Philippines’ digitalisation agenda.