India’s Internet Boom Faces an Undersea Cable Problem: Why Submarine Networks Matter for Digital Growth
India’s digital economy looks like it’s on an unstoppable run. Payments happen in seconds, video calls connect instantly, and cloud services power everything from banking apps to AI tools. But almost none of that would work without something most people never think about: submarine cables lying thousands of metres below the ocean. These cables are the quiet backbone of the internet. And as India’s data needs explode, the country’s growing reliance on them is turning into both a big opportunity and a real vulnerability.
Why These Cables Matter More Than People Realise
It’s easy to assume the internet runs on satellites or invisible “cloud” magic. In reality, fibre-optic cables strung across ocean floors carry more than 99% of the world’s international data traffic. Financial transactions, cloud platforms, video streaming, everyday messages almost all of it passes through these lines at some point. For India, this matters even more right now. Internet usage keeps climbing, cloud adoption is accelerating, 5G is scaling up, and AI workloads are pulling in enormous amounts of data. Every time someone in India streams a show hosted overseas, logs into a global cloud service, or video calls someone abroad, that data is very likely travelling through one or more of these undersea cable systems. Which means if a cable gets damaged or overloaded, the effects don’t stay confined to the coastline they can ripple across the entire economy.
India Is Building More Cables But They’re Clustered Together
To be fair, India isn’t sitting still. The government has confirmed that several new cable systems including India Europe Xpress (IEX), SEA-ME-WE-6, 2Africa, and Raman are currently being commissioned. A few more, like the Wyasa Cable System, Indian Ocean Cable, and WABAN, are in the planning stages. The catch? Most of this infrastructure is packed into just a couple of landing points mainly Mumbai and Chennai. According to APNIC, India connects to roughly 20 submarine cable systems, and Mumbai remains the dominant hub by far. That concentration is a risk in itself. When so much international connectivity funnels through a small handful of locations, one serious outage in the wrong place could cause disruption far bigger than it should. Newer landing sites, like Machilipatnam and Digha, could help spread that risk out but for now, the imbalance remains.
AI and Cloud Demand Are Driving a New Wave of Investment
A big part of the push to build more cables is coming from AI and cloud computing, which are hungry for bandwidth in a way traditional internet use never was. In July 2026, Microsoft and Singapore-based Lightstorm working with partners including Tata Communications and Singtel announced the I-2SEA project: a 3,600-km undersea cable linking India with Malaysia and Singapore. It’s expected to go live sometime in the fourth quarter of 2029, built specifically to handle rising AI and cloud traffic. Google and Meta, along with major Indian telecom players, are also pouring money into connectivity upgrades, a clear signal that everyone expects India’s data demands to keep climbing for years to come.
The Part Nobody Talks About: Old Cables and No Repair Ships
Here’s the less glamorous side of the story. Building new cables is only half the job, maintaining the old ones is just as critical, and that’s where things get shaky. APNIC estimates that around 11 of the submarine cable systems connected to India are already over 20 years old, edging toward the end of their working life. On top of that, India doesn’t have its own cable-repair ship. When something goes wrong, operators have to rely on regional arrangements to get a fix which takes time. And delays matter, because cables get damaged more often than people assume dragged anchors, fishing trawlers, natural disasters, and other incidents are common culprits. The International Telecommunication Union has flagged this exact combination of physical damage, slow repairs, and cables clustered in too few locations as one of the biggest threats to global internet resilience.
Why This Actually Affects Everyday Users
It’s tempting to file “submarine cable infrastructure” under boring, distant, technical stuff that doesn’t touch daily life. But it does. A stronger, more resilient cable network means smoother video streaming, faster cloud access, more reliable international calls, and fewer hiccups in digital payments, the kind of things people only notice when they stop working. For India’s broader economy, the stakes are even bigger. As data centres, AI platforms, and digital businesses keep scaling up, having solid international bandwidth stops being a nice-to-have and becomes basic infrastructure as essential as roads or power grids. More smartphones, faster 5G, and bigger data centres can only take India’s internet boom so far. Unless the cables carrying all that data also grow, spread out geographically, and become easier to repair quickly, the foundation underneath this boom stays shakier than it looks. The next chapter of India’s digital growth may hinge on infrastructure that almost nobody will ever actually see.
FAQs
1. Why are submarine cables important for India’s internet?
They carry international data traffic connecting India to global internet, cloud, financial and communication networks.
2. Where are India’s main submarine cable hubs?
Mumbai and Chennai are the country’s major cable landing hubs, although newer locations are being developed to diversify connectivity.
3. What happens if an undersea cable is damaged?
Traffic can often be rerouted through other cables, but major or multiple faults can cause slower connections, congestion and disruptions.
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