India's reliance on submarine cables for its internet connectivity poses a vulnerability, as many of these cables land in Mumbai's coastal area, making them susceptible to damage from accidents or intentional cuts. Experts warn that such an event could disrupt the country's westward bandwidth, impacting industries like banking and cloud computing. Despite being one of the largest consumers of data, India only has about 1% of the world's total submarine cables, with just 21 cable landing stations compared to over 1,900 globally. According to experts, this disparity is a "paradox" at the heart of India's digital transformation, as it becomes increasingly dependent on these cables without controlling enough physical infrastructure.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-05,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
- Published
One of India's biggest digital vulnerabilities sits on a six-kilometre stretch of Mumbai's Arabian Sea coast.
asserted
One → publish → coast
Around Versova, a densely populated neighbourhood on the city's northwest, at least 13 of India's 18 intercontinental submarine cables, external come ashore within six kilometres of one another.
asserted
13 → come → one
Together they carry as much as 95% of India's international bandwidth to Europe, Africa and West Asia.
asserted
they → carry → Europe
"This network faces a critical vulnerability due to severe geographic concentration," says Anwesha Sen of Takshashila Institution, a think tank.
asserted
Sen → face → Institution
"If several of those cables were cut simultaneously, either accidentally or deliberately, a bulk of India's westward bandwidth to West Asia, Africa and Europe would be impacted.
asserted
bulk → cut → Asia
"
Cable architecture allows traffic to be rerouted, so a cut would not cause a total blackout.
asserted
cut → allow → blackout
Traffic could be diverted through other landing points, including the southern cities of Chennai and Kochi, say experts.
uncertain
experts → divert → Chennai
(India's 18 subsea cables land in Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Tuticorin, and Trivandrum.
asserted
cables → land → Mumbai
But even performance degradation - small increases in the time it takes data to travel - could be costly for banks, stock exchanges, cloud providers and government networks.
uncertain
it → take → banks
AI infrastructure may be particularly sensitive because it relies on high-volume, high-speed data transfers.
uncertain
it → rely → transfers
That vulnerability stems from how much of the world's digital traffic depends on these cables.
asserted
much → stem → cables
They are the internet's hidden highways - bundles of optical fibres on the ocean floor carrying data between continents as pulses of light.
asserted
They → hide → light
Humans have laid some 870,000 miles (1.4 million km) of them, "lacing the Earth tightly together", writes Samanth Subramanian in his new book The Web Beneath the Waves.
asserted
Subramanian → lay → Waves
These cables carry about 99% of global communication traffic.
asserted
cables → carry → traffic
Cheap data has helped make India one of the world's biggest internet markets.
asserted
India → help → markets
By late 2025, it had more than a billion broadband subscribers, external.
asserted
it → have → subscribers
India's growing digital economy and services sector increasingly depend on these cables.
asserted
economy → grow → cables
But India's growing reliance on this invisible infrastructure sits uneasily with how little of it the country actually has.
asserted
country → grow → it
India accounts for roughly 20% of global consumption of data, but is connected to only about 3% of the world's submarine cables.
asserted
India → account → cables
It has 21 cable landing stations - coastal gateways where undersea cables connect to terrestrial networks - compared with roughly 1,900 planned and active globally, giving India about 1% of the world's total, according to the Broadband India Forum (BIF).
uncertain
cables → have → Forum
"We need to grow the number of cable landing stations several fold," says Aruna Sundararajan, chairperson of BIF.
asserted
Sundararajan → need → BIF
Experts believe this is the paradox at the heart of India's digital transformation: the country is becoming an internet and data-centre powerhouse without controlling enough of the physical infrastructure that connects it to the world.
asserted
that → believe → world
A recent paper by Takshashila Instituition finds that 11 of India's 18 international cables are more than 20 years old, approaching the nominal 25-year operating life of submarine cable systems.
asserted
11 → find → systems
"It's true that a significant share of India's landing cables are approaching economic end-of-life, and that is a legitimate area of focus," says Amajit Gupta, group CEO and managing director of Lightstorm, a digital infrastructure company.
asserted
Gupta → approach → Lightstorm
"We've seen a version of this scenario play out with the Red Sea disruptions, external," Gupta said, when traffic was rerouted east through Singapore and onward to the US.
asserted
traffic → see → US
And when an undersea cable breaks, India has another striking weakness: it has no domestic subsea cable-repair ships.
asserted
it → break → ships
Repair ships have to come from abroad and obtain permission to operate in Indian waters.
asserted
ships → have → waters
"Every cable fault in Indian waters depends on foreign repair ships from Dubai or Singapore.
asserted
fault → depend → Dubai
Once a foreign ship is assigned, it must obtain licences to operate in Indian waters, adding weeks to an already lengthy process," says Sen.
asserted
Sen. → assign → process
"The bigger structural issue for India isn't rerouting capability - it's repair capacity," says Gupta.
asserted
Gupta → reroute → India
"That combination – dependence on foreign repair capacity and regulatory lead times – represents the real bottleneck," he says.
asserted
he → represent → bottleneck
Gupta believes the question isn't whether India is retiring old cables, but whether new terrestrial and subsea capacity can keep pace with AI-driven demand.
asserted
capacity → believe → demand
"The industry cannot afford to catch up; it must stay ahead," he says.
asserted
he → afford → ?
That demand is also fuelling a rapid build-out of data centres - the computing hubs where data is stored and AI models are trained and run.
asserted
models → fuel → centres
They too depend on fast, reliable links to global cloud and internet networks.
asserted
They → depend → networks
Government figures, external show installed data-centre capacity has risen from 375MW in 2020 to about 1,575MW today.
asserted
capacity → show → today
That creates a potential mismatch.
asserted
That → create → mismatch
"Subsea cable planning itself takes three-four years and then cable laying also takes up to two years depending upon cable length," says Sundararajan.
asserted
Sundararajan → take → length
"Thus, there can be some lag in getting subsea cable capacity to feed the upcoming data-centre capacity."
asserted
capacity → get → capacity
Sundararajan says 16 agencies across telecoms, defence, home affairs, shipping, ports, environment and state authorities are involved in clearing the construction, operation and repair of subsea cables.
asserted
agencies → say → cables
…and 19 more, not listed.
