The public consultation process, promoted by the Directorate-General for Natural Resources, Security and Maritime Services (DGRM), aims to issue the Private Use Title of the National Maritime Space (TUPEM) for the installation and operation of Google's transatlantic submarine telecommunications cable.

The public consultation of the Nuvem project, whose promoter is Sailfish Infrastructure, a company that represents Google LLC in Portugal, will run until 9 July and is available on the Participa portal of the Portuguese Environment Agency.

According to the project summary, consulted by Lusa news agency, the request for the issuance of the TUPEM for the use of an area of ​​national maritime space, for a maximum period of 25 years, aims to install and operate the submarine telecommunications cable, in what will be the first direct connection between the United States and Portugal.

The cable route “located in Portuguese waters” has an “extension of 2,992.82 kilometres, from the coast of Sines, passing through the Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Mainland Portugal and continuing in the EEZ of the Azores, up to the line corresponding to the limit of the extended Portuguese continental shelf”, it can be read.

The submarine fibre optic cable between Sines and the east coast of the USA will have “a total extension of approximately 6,870 kilometres”, with anchorages in Bermuda and the Azores.

According to the document, the Nuvem system “will allow direct, reliable and low-latency connections to be provided between the US East Coast and Europe” to facilitate “the connection of the main intercontinental cable routes”.

“This additional capacity is necessary to meet the growing demand for international telecommunications traffic, also ensuring the diversification and redundancy of routes in the Atlantic, safeguarding the continuity of international telecommunications traffic services and creating a more resilient submarine transmission network”, it says.

The cable “has a projected capacity of 200 terabits per second, which will allow sustaining network access for hundreds of millions of people”, the promoters indicate in the document, adding that the connection to Portugal “will benefit companies and consumers”.

“Internet use in Portugal grew from 6.8 million users in 2014 to 8.8 million by the end of 2022”, points out the promoter.

The Caixa de Visita (BMH) on Areão beach in this Alentejo municipality, part of the EllaLink submarine cable, will be used to moor the Nuvem cable in Sines, following an agreement between the companies “for the use of the entire terrestrial part of the respective cable’s infrastructure”.

Google’s submarine cable, which will be moored in Bermuda and the Azores, was presented in July 2024 in Ponta Delgada, on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores, and was considered a project of “significant public interest” by the Regional Government.

At the time, the company announced that the system could be operational in 2026 and estimated an impact of 500 million euros on the national economy.