Firmus and SUBCO have entered into an agreement to construct Bernacchi-1, a novel submarine fiber-optic cable that will connect Tasmania to mainland Australia via the Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth (SMAP) system. This development will add over 60 Tbps of capacity, marking the first new subsea fiber connection for the state in over two decades.
The companies have revealed that Bernacchi-1 will integrate Tasmania into SUBCO’s SMAP cable system, which connects Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. This new extension is projected to more than double Tasmania’s current connectivity capacity, while also enhancing network diversity and resilience.
Firmus and SUBCO have stated that the cable will provide Tasmania with over 60 Tbps of additional capacity from the outset, surpassing the combined capacity of all existing Bass Strait fiber cables. Subject to the finalization of marine and landing permits, Bernacchi-1 will land in northern Tasmania and offer two routes to mainland Australia: a north-west route to Melbourne and a north-east route to Sydney.
The Sydney route will provide Tasmania with its first direct subsea fiber connection to New South Wales, where many of Australia’s international submarine cable systems land. The project is being financially backed by Firmus as part of its wider Project Southgate initiative, which seeks to expand AI infrastructure across Australia. SUBCO will construct and operate Bernacchi-1 as an extension of the SMAP network.
Bevan Slattery, Founder & Co-CEO at SUBCO, expressed his enthusiasm for the project, stating, “I have been attempting to establish a new fiber route between Tasmania and the mainland for over a decade to bring much-needed diversity, resiliency, and cheaper connectivity to Australia and the world. Bernacchi-1, for me, is a prime example of how Australia can leverage AI to create new sovereign-owned infrastructure capability for the benefit of the nation as a whole, and this simply would not have happened without Firmus’s significant investment and underwriting the long-term operations.”
Tim Rosenfield, Founder & Co-CEO at Firmus Technologies, added, “We are re-wiring Australia’s digital infrastructure to make Australia one of the world’s largest exporters of AI tokens. Investing in the critical subsea connectivity infrastructure required for this task is another example of Firmus’s leadership as a full-stack AI Factory Platform company.”
The cable is named in honor of Louis Bernacchi, a physicist and Antarctic explorer raised in Tasmania, who was the first Tasmanian and first Australian to overwinter in Antarctica while conducting some of the earliest sustained scientific observations on the continent.
Bernacchi-1 is anticipated to be operational in Q2 2027, following the completion of the SMAP system, which is expected to be service-ready in June 2026. SMAP will feature 16 fiber pairs and a planned design capacity of 400 Tbps. SUBCO has stated that the system is expected to become one of the world’s highest-capacity undersea cable networks and describes it as Australia’s first “hypercable.”
