India is facing significant risks concerning digital security, resilience, and network capacity, primarily because its international connectivity relies heavily on a small number of submarine cables that come ashore along Mumbai’s coastline, just as the nation’s need for high-speed data is hitting new peaks.
High concentration of cable landings near Mumbai
On the submarine cable map, a six-kilometre stretch of Mumbai’s Arabian Sea coast, close to Versova, is identified as the landing site for at least 13 of India’s 18 intercontinental submarine cables. These undersea connections handle an estimated 95% of India’s international digital bandwidth which links India with Europe, Africa, and West Asia.
Anwesha Sen, a fellow at the Takshashila Institution, explains that this density poses a major threat: if multiple cables were disrupted—by accident or design—a large part of India’s westbound internet traffic could be knocked offline at once.
Although there are other points where cables land in Chennai, Kochi, Tuticorin, and Trivandrum, experts warn that traffic rerouting can result in slowdowns, severely affecting performance-dependent sectors like banking, cloud computing, financial services, and artificial intelligence that are highly sensitive to even small latency increases.
Data usage spikes as infrastructure lags behind
With more than one billion broadband subscribers by late 2025 (government data) and affordable internet access, India has grown into one of the top global online markets. However, its rapid digital progress rests on a narrow foundation: the country consumes about 20% of global data but only connects to around 3% of the world’s submarine cables.
Out of around 1,900 cable landing stations worldwide, India has only 21, translating to roughly 1% of the global total (Broadband India Forum). Aruna Sundararajan, head of the BIF, notes, “The number of cable landing stations must multiply dramatically.”
Ageing cables add to the risks: the Takshashila Institution reports that 11 of India’s 18 international cables have operated for more than two decades, and are approaching the standard 25-year lifetime. Amajit Gupta, CEO at Lightstorm, flags this as a priority concern in light of India’s rising, AI-driven data needs. Gupta adds, “We must not play catch up; we need to get ahead of demand.”
Repair response time creates vulnerabilities
The most common risk to submarine cables comes from unintentional damage—ship anchors, fishing, technical failures, or natural hazards—not hostile acts. Worldwide, 150-200 cable faults occur annually. In India’s case, repair capabilities are limited: there are no Indian-based repair ships, so vessels are sent from overseas, typically from Dubai or Singapore, and must wait for multiple clearances before they can begin fixing faults, lengthening outage times.
“Every time there is a cable incident in Indian waters, the response relies entirely on foreign ships,” notes Anwesha Sen. Gupta points to a “real bottleneck” created by dependence on foreign repair operations and bureaucratic holdups.
This procedural complexity is further intensified by the need for up to 50 clearances from at least 16 government ministries covering telecoms, defense, ports, shipping, and environmental checks to set up even one cable landing station, says Sundararajan. She advocates transforming the Department of Telecommunications into the main permission-granting authority, introducing a unified, single-window clearance process.
Infrastructure struggles to match data growth
India’s data-centre capacity has soared, increasing from 375MW in 2020 to about 1,575MW today (official source). These data centres, critical for cloud and AI applications, depend on stable, fast international network connections.
To bolster capacity, four new subsea cable projects are currently being developed, and three others are planned. Lightstorm heads a consortium building the I-2SEA system, which will feature dual landings at Machilipatnam and South Chennai as a measure to spread out risk and enhance connectivity security.
Submarine cables were recently defined as critical telecommunications infrastructure by the Indian government—a move designed to streamline approvals, introduce expedited repair options in emergencies, and support the future deployment of an Indian repair fleet. Protective legislation is also being considered, to keep hazardous practices like anchoring or fishing away from cable landing areas.
Boosting resilience and domestic capability
Emerging technologies such as Distributed Acoustic Sensing—capable of turning optical fibre into an early-warning sensor for sub-sea dangers—bring some promise. Nonetheless, experts agree that urgent priorities include expanding cable landing sites geographically, expediting permit processes, shielding cable areas, and setting up rapid-response local repair teams.
Pooja Bhatt, associate professor at OP Jindal Global University, points out the national interest: “Building and controlling its own internet infrastructure is logical for India’s security and governance goals, especially considering its young population and ‘Digital India’ ambitions.”
With digital transformation accelerating and data-centric, AI-powered industries expanding, the stability and security of India’s cross-border internet infrastructure have become more critical than ever. In the long run, the pace of reforms, investment in repairs, and geographic diversification will define India’s capacity to shield its digital economy as demands and technologies evolve.