India's Internet Boom Runs Into an Undersea Problem

Undersea cables are the internet's hidden highways. Long fiber-optic lines lie on the ocean floor and carry data between continents as pulses of light. Humans have laid nearly 1.4 million kilometers of these cables, and together they handle about 99% of the world's international internet traffic. In India, at least 13 of the country's 18 major cables come ashore within just six kilometers of each other, near a busy neighborhood in Mumbai. Experts say this makes India's connection to the world dangerously concentrated in one small area.

India now has more than a billion broadband users and one of the fastest-growing digital economies on Earth. Yet the country controls very little of the physical infrastructure that connects it to other continents. India uses about 20% of the world's data but is linked to only around 3% of global submarine cables. It also has just 21 cable landing stations, compared with roughly 1,900 worldwide. Many of India's existing cables are more than 20 years old and are nearing the end of their normal working life, which typically lasts about 25 years.

If several cables near Mumbai were cut at once, by accident or on purpose, a large share of India's data traffic to Europe, Africa, and West Asia could be disrupted. Traffic could be rerouted through cities like Chennai and Kochi, so experts say a total blackout is unlikely. But even small delays could hurt banks, stock exchanges, and cloud providers, especially since AI systems need very fast, high-volume data transfers. Most cable damage actually comes from ordinary accidents, like fishing nets or ship anchors, rather than deliberate attacks. Still, experts say India urgently needs more cable landing stations and better geographic diversity to protect its digital future.