That's the kind of thing where I can't even imagine how the project conceivers and directors can even have the creativity and chutzpah to envision a $300 million dollar lab made by boring dozens of tubes 2 kilometers into the south pole to create a giant cubic kilometer of sensors.
There are precedents for this. ANTARES and DUMAND both used similar approaches although they used strings in the Mediterranean and Pacific. I suppose using ice makes things easier in that you don't have to worry about sealife and ocean currents but the logistics are going to be a lot tougher and there's probably more ambient light to worry about.
> The incredible clarity of the Antarctic glacier, revealed by the construction and operation of IceCube, will allow the spacing between light sensors to exceed 250 meters, instead of the current 125 meters in IceCube. The deployment of sensors on strings with larger spacings will enable the IceCube-Gen2 instrumented volume to rapidly grow at modest costs.
Obviously I'm glad such people exist.