India's Internet Boom Faces Undersea Cable Vulnerability

India’s internet and data-centre expansion is being constrained by a concentration of submarine cables around Mumbai, where at least 13 of the country’s 18 intercontinental cables land within six kilometres, according to BBC reported. Those cables carry as much as 95% of India’s international bandwidth to Europe, Africa and West Asia, while India has only about 3% of the world’s submarine cables despite accounting for roughly 20% of global data consumption. The article says 11 of India’s 18 international cables are more than 20 years old, close to the nominal 25-year operating life, and that India has no domestic subsea cable-repair ships, meaning foreign vessels must be brought in and licensed before work can begin. Government figures show installed data-centre capacity has risen from 375MW in 2020 to about 1,575MW today, intensifying pressure on cable capacity as AI demand grows.