By Antonio De la Jara
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chilean telecommunications company GTD said on Wednesday it will install an undersea cable along more than 2,174 miles (3,500 km) of Pacific coastline to improve connectivity with its operations in Colombia and Peru.
The project to lay the fiber optic cable, which will be submerged 2,000 meters (6,561 feet) below sea level in the ocean when it is complete in two years, is aimed at doubling the company's data transmission in Chile, GTD said in a statement.
GTD's plan comes at a time when Chile is trying to pivot toward an information-based economy and courting major tech companies, including Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), to expand their operations within its borders.
Google and Chilean officials announced earlier on Wednesday the $140 million expansion of the company's data center in Chile.
With this initiative "there will be more possibilities to compete in a globalized world ... and attract more investment to Chile," said Juan Manuel Casanueva, president of GTD, in a statement emailed to Reuters.
The undersea cable project will improve the service and operation of GTD's data center network, made up of seven data centers in Chile, Peru and Colombia.