Chile aims for the Humboldt submarine cable to serve not only as a new connection between the country and the Asia-Pacific region, but also as infrastructure capable of distributing capacity to other Latin American markets and supporting the development of new artificial intelligence hubs outside Santiago.

Stephanie Castro, digital project manager at Chile’s Desarrollo País, said new infrastructure routes are beginning to respond to factors different from those that have historically guided network deployments. “Routes will stop following cities and end customers and start following energy,” she said during a presentation at Carriers Map Day 2026.

According to Castro, 99% of Chile’s digital capacity is currently concentrated in Santiago. The development of AI infrastructure, however, opens the possibility of attracting new investment to other regions of the country. One of them is Antofagasta, about 1,200 kilometers north of Santiago. The availability of solar energy makes the region an option for locating data centers dedicated to training AI models.

Magallanes also has potential because of its climate and energy conditions. The availability of low temperatures could become an asset for an industry in which cooling is becoming increasingly important as equipment density rises, Castro said.