Japanese tech firm NEC has been appointed by the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) consortium to lay the cable with multiple pairs of optical fibers to enable high-capacity transmission of data across East and Southeast Asia, Singapore newspaper Strait Times reported on Friday.

It will also connect Hong Kong, China, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

In Vietnam, the point of connection would be in Quy Nhon town in the south central province of Binh Dinh, American business technology news website ZDNet reported.

Members of the consortium are Vietnam’s military-run Viettel, Singapore’s Singtel, China Telecom, Japan’s SoftBank, and India’s Tata Communications.

Ooi Seng Keat, Singtel's vice-president of carrier services, OTT, satellites, and group enterprise, said the cable will help the telco meet rapidly growing demand for high-speed connectivity to support advanced technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things-related services and high-definition video.

Chang Weiguo, one of the ADC co-chairs from China Telecom, told ZDNet: "The ADC system provides the highest cable capacity and necessary diversity for Asia's key information hubs, which will enable carriers and service providers to better plan their networks and services for sustainable development."

Vietnam, where more than 64 percent of the population is online, has six submarine cable systems, plus a 120 gigabit channel that runs overland through China.

The Asia Pacific Gateway undersea cable, which currently has the highest bandwidth of 54 Tbps, has suffered from disruptions many times.