Google's latest undersea data cable, linking Japan and Taiwan, is now online, paving the way for multiple gigabit-per-second transfers all the way from the West Coast of the US to Singapore and beyond.

The new cable is an extension of a 5,600-mile trans-Pacific cable that went online in June. It will pipe data at up to 26 terabits per second to Google's data center in Taiwan, which serves Google services to most of Asia (with the notable exception of China).

The capacity boost the new cable provides is hard to quantify. In a blog post, Google described 26 terabits per second as the equivalent of 138 billion selfies per day. It's enough capacity to let every person in Taiwan send a selfie to Japan every 15 seconds.

Theoretically, Google users in Asia will see speed boosts thanks to the new cable, enabling more responsive Google Docs spreadsheets, faster Google Drive uploads, and the like. Whether or not consumers will actually notice a difference, though, depends in large part on the capabilities of their Internet service providers. In Korea and Singapore, which already have some of the fastest Internet speeds in the world, the boost could make for a markedly improved experience.

The trans-Pacific cable, which stretches from Oregon to two landing points in Japan, delivers 60 terabits per second of bandwidth, which is about 10 million times faster than the average cable modem. Engineered at a cost of $300 million by a consortium of tech companies, including Google, it's currently the world's fastest fiber optic undersea cable.

In addition to the new Japan-Taiwan link, it also has extended connections to major West Coast US hubs, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle.