Photograph) The signing ceremony for the JAKO (Japan-Korea) Project, held late in the afternoon of June 24 at LS Yongsan Tower in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. From left, Lee Han-wook, general manager of AWS APAC Backbone, Tatsuya Abe, CEO of Arteria Networks, Han Yoon-jae, CEO of Dreamline, Stanley Lim, managing director of Microsoft, and Joo Wan-seop, head of the Communication and Industrial Solutions Division of LS Cable & System.


■ First Korean cable company to win turnkey contract for submarine communications network between countries
■ LS Cable & System to oversee engineering, procurement and construction, and LS Marine Solution to lay submarine cables
■ Market to expand in energy highway field, followed by digital highway field


LS Cable & System and LS Marine Solution announced on the 25th that they will jointly participate in the Japan-Korea Submarine Communication Network Building Project (JAKO) led by Microsoft (MS) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

JAKO is a large-scale submarine communications infrastructure project being pushed forward by a consortium of global tech and telecommunications companies, including MS, AWS, Korea's Dreamline, and Japan's Arteria Networks.

On the same day, the two companies signed an agreement with the consortium to formalize their full-scale participation in the project, and announced the business outline, participating companies, and future schedule.

This project aims to build a communications network using optical cables over a total of 260 km between Busan and Fukuoka, and is scheduled to begin in 2025 and finish in 2027.

LS Cable & System is the first Korean cable company to win a turnkey EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) contract for an international submarine communications network project. It will be in charge of the entire project, while LS Marine Solution will carry out the submarine cable laying work.

This project aims to build core infrastructure to respond to rapidly increasing data traffic due to the expansion of AI and cloud services, and is expected to play a pivotal role in Korea's leap forward as a global communications hub.

This project comes on the heels of the existing Northeast Asia energy highway. With it, the companies plan to establish a core axis of the Northeast Asia digital highway, and further strengthen their position in the global market in the digital infrastructure field.

“This will be a meaningful case of Korean companies directly participating in a core infrastructure project led by global cloud and communications companies,” said Joo Wan-seop, head of the Communication and Industrial Solutions Division of LS Cable & System. “LS Cable & System and LS Marine Solution will strengthen global cooperation and continue to expand their presence in the submarine infrastructure market.”