Before leaving the territory Thursday night, Google Vice President, Global Network Infrastructure, Mr. Brian Quigley, joined local business and government leaders at an American Samoa Chamber of Commerce dinner celebrating the Le Vasa undersea cable project.
The event at A&E Cafe, brought together local business leaders with key partners in the fiber optic initiative that will connect American Samoa to Google’s Pacific Connect network.
Chamber President Ella Gurr opened the evening by crediting the Pula administration for securing American Samoa’s participation in the project, noting the territory almost missed the opportunity. “When infrastructure is strong, businesses grow. And when businesses grow, communities prosper,” Gurr said.
Quigley explained how Google developed the Pacific Connect Initiative after realizing the company misunderstood connectivity challenges facing Pacific Island nations. “A few years ago, I realized how much I didn’t know about the Pacific,” Quigley told attendees. “I was presenting to a number of Pacific Island leaders, and I thought the playbooks that we had for our investments applied to the Pacific. I was wrong. The internet is weak. It’s very expensive. There’s lots of logistics problems.”
He described meeting with a prime minister who had to fly to Fiji just to get enough bandwidth for a video call with Google. “Something that I took for granted. It never even entered my mind that connectivity just wasn’t available. That’s why we started an initiative called Pacific Connect focused on connecting the Pacific Islands.”
Quigley pointed to Tuvalu, where Pacific Connect launched service in October 2025, as proof the initiative works.
In just three months, internet usage in Tuvalu exploded 9.7 times, latency dropped from 580 milliseconds to 88, and mobile internet prices fell 50%.
He also emphasized the urgency of the project as artificial intelligence transforms the global economy. “Nothing is going to transform the world like AI,” Quigley said. “What it means is the digital divide, the impact of having this divide is even worse. And if you can’t access these tremendous transformational technologies, Pacific Islands just get further and further behind.”
ASTCA CEO Folasaitu Sorepa Thomas thanked Nu’uuli Village for hosting the ava ceremony welcoming the Google Vice President earlier in the day and emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships in bringing Le Vasa to American Samoa.
The evening concluded with Chamber board member Whitey Chen presenting gifts to Mr. Quigley and ASTCA CEO Folasaitu.
