Keppel has signed an indefeasible right of use agreement with a global hyperscaler for the final available fibre pair on the Bifrost Cable System.

The deal means all five fibre pairs in Keppel’s Bifrost portfolio have now been committed to customers including telecommunications operators, hyperscalers and technology companies.

Keppel estimates the agreements will generate a total contract value of around US$1.3 billion (S$1.7 billion), including recurring operations and maintenance revenue over 25 years.

The company expects the project to deliver an internal rate of return of about 30% for Keppel and its private fund investors. 

“The commercialisation of all five of Keppel’s fibre pairs on Bifrost is a validation of our ability to originate, develop, operate and crystalise value from proprietary digital infrastructure assets,” said Manjot Singh Mann, CEO, Connectivity of Keppel. The agreements would generate returns for Keppel and its limited partners, alongside recurring income from the group’s asset management and operating businesses. 

“Building on this track record, together with our private funds and listed trusts, we are pursuing and evaluating two new cable systems, one from Singapore to the Middle East with branches across South Asia, and the other from Singapore to Japan through the South China Sea with branches across ASEAN,” Mann continued. 

Keppel’s data centre, connectivity and power businesses would support growing demand for AI infrastructure, he added. 

Bifrost is a subsea cable system linking Singapore directly to the west coast of the US via Indonesia, with a route spanning more than 20,000km through the Java and Celebes seas.

The system provides more than 240Tbps of trans-Pacific capacity and is designed to support cloud and AI workloads.

Keppel’s investment in the cable’s fibre pairs is held through a 40:60 joint venture with private fund co-investors. The group is also involved in the cable’s installation, maintenance and related digital infrastructure, including data centres, power, cooling and water systems.