RIP to the first transatlantic internet cable 🌐👀 #trendingshorts #tech #internet

So the first transatlantic internet cable is being pulled from the ocean floor right now and almost no one knows it's happening. TAT8 went live in 1988, the first fiber optic cable to connect Europe and the United States. When it launched, Isaac Asimov called it the maiden voyage across the sea on a beam of light. The engineers behind it genuinely believed it might be the last transatlantic cable the world would ever need. See, the fiber optic technology was so far ahead of copper that they thought they had finally solved the problem of global bandwidth for good. But the internet grew faster than anyone anticipated and it filled to capacity within 18 months. This forced the industry to

immediately start laying more cables. It was the first sign that demand would keep outpacing infrastructure, a race that still hasn't stopped to date. But after developing a fault that was too expensive to fix, the cable was retired from service in 2002. It has sat dormant on the seabed since then. But now, a small crew aboard this ship is dragging it back up. Meanwhile, Meta announced Project Waterworth last year, a new 50,000 km cable stretching across 5 continents, partly to feed the data demands of AI.

What's crazy is that the entire global internet runs on cables like this, built and maintained by a few thousand people working in places most of us will never see. by a few thousand people working in places most of us will never see. If you want to stay in the loop with the latest in AI and robotics, follow for more.