Mumbai: One of India's most significant digital vulnerabilities is located on a six-kilometre stretch of Mumbai’s Arabian Sea coast. In the bustling neighborhood of Versova, on the city's northwest side, at least 13 of India's 18 intercontinental submarine cables come ashore within a narrow range of just six kilometers. These cables are crucial as they handle up to 95% of India's international bandwidth destined for Europe, Africa, and West Asia.
According to BBC, this geographic concentration poses a severe risk to India's digital infrastructure. "This network faces a critical vulnerability due to severe geographic concentration," warns Anwesha Sen of the Takshashila Institution, a think tank. If multiple cables were simultaneously disrupted, whether by accident or intent, India's westward bandwidth to these regions could face significant disruptions. Although traffic can be rerouted through other landing points in Chennai and Kochi, even minor disruptions could lead to costly performance degradation for banks, stock exchanges, and cloud providers, with AI infrastructure particularly vulnerable due to its reliance on high-speed data transfers.
The underlying vulnerability is tied to the global reliance on these submarine cables, which serve as the internet's hidden highways, transmitting data as pulses of light across continents. These cables account for about 99% of global communication traffic, and India, despite being one of the world's largest internet markets, faces a paradox in its digital transformation. While it consumes roughly 20% of global data, it is connected to only about 3% of the world's submarine cables and has just 1% of the world's cable landing stations, according to the Broadband India Forum (BIF).
Aruna Sundararajan, chairperson of BIF, stresses the need for India to increase its cable landing stations significantly. A recent paper by the Takshashila Institution highlights that 11 of India's 18 international cables are aging, nearing their 25-year operational lifespan. Amajit Gupta, CEO of Lightstorm, emphasizes the importance of addressing this issue, noting that cable faults, often caused by fishing, ship anchors, and natural hazards, occur globally at a rate of 150-200 per year.
India's repair capabilities also present a critical weakness, as the country lacks domestic subsea cable-repair ships, relying on foreign vessels from Dubai or Singapore. This dependence on foreign repair capacity and regulatory delays represent significant bottlenecks. Gupta argues that the real challenge lies in expanding new terrestrial and subsea capacity to meet AI-driven demand rather than merely replacing old cables.
The growing demand for data is also driving a rapid expansion of data centers in India, which require fast, reliable links to global networks. However, the bureaucratic hurdles involved in subsea cable planning and construction remain formidable, with Sundararajan advocating for streamlined approvals and pre-approved landing sites to facilitate quicker development.
India has begun to recognize the importance of its submarine cable infrastructure, designating it as critical telecommunications infrastructure. Sundararajan believes this should lead to faster clearances and emergency repair mechanisms, as well as the establishment of legally protected cable zones.
Technological solutions such as Distributed Acoustic Sensing could enhance cable security by detecting potential threats before a cable is severed. However, immediate solutions include expanding landing stations, diversifying cable routes, securing faster permissions, and developing domestic repair capabilities.
The shift towards a more resilient infrastructure is underway, with four new submarine cable systems being commissioned and three more planned. Lightstorm is leading a consortium to build I-2SEA, a system linking India with Malaysia and Singapore, which will enhance connectivity and diversify existing routes.
As India embraces a data-driven future, its internet infrastructure's fragility remains a pressing concern. The country is racing to expand its data centers and prepare for an AI-heavy future, but the question remains whether its cables, landing stations, and repair capabilities can keep pace with the burgeoning demand.