Meta's Subsea Cable to Land in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam: A Boost for India's Digital Infrastructure
Meta Platforms, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has chosen Mumbai and Visakhapatnam as the landing sites for its multibillion-dollar undersea cable project, Waterworth. According to sources familiar with the plans, Meta has hired Sify Technologies as its landing partner in India under an estimated $5 million contract. Google has also partnered with Sify for the India landing of its $400 million Blue-Raman subsea cable.
The deals by Meta and Google highlight the deepening investment of Big Data companies in India’s digital infrastructure and the country’s growing strategic importance in global data connectivity networks. India’s subsea cable ecosystem has witnessed massive capacity addition in the last three years. Besides Meta and Google, Indian telecom operators such as Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are also investing heavily in cable systems, aiming to tap into the surging data demand in the South Asian nation.
Sunil Tagare, founder of California-based OpenCables Inc., estimates that Meta’s cable system could be a $10 billion investment over the next 5-10 years. This includes $2 billion for the bare-bones cable, $2 billion for the equipment to light up 1 Pbps (petabits per second) capacity, and at least $6 billion in leasing or building AI data centre capacity in India.
Waterworth, spanning over 50,000 kilometres, is set to become the world’s longest subsea cable system, connecting the US, India, Brazil, and South Africa. Its distinctive W-shaped route bypasses the volatile Red Sea corridor, a recent hotspot for cable damages due to Houthi hostilities. The cable is expected to land in 2030.
This project could be especially transformative for India, positioning it as a potential global hub for AI infrastructure. Meta may also be looking at data localization due to evolving legal requirements. With this project, Meta is steering away from the consortium approach it used in 2Africa cable and now mirroring the Google approach of owning full fibre.
India’s subsea cable ecosystem is witnessing massive capacity addition. Bharti Airtel commissioned the Sea-Me-We 6 cable system in December 2024 and has large investments in 2 Africa Pearls, currently the longest subsea cable system in the world. Reliance Jio is set to commission cable landings of the India-Asia-Express and India-Europe-Express cable networks, which are expected to significantly increase India’s installed capacity. Tata Communications already owns the TGN-IA2 cable and is part of the consortium that operates the Asia Direct network.
The large investments in cables by Google and Meta will potentially pit the technology giants against domestic data incumbents like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Tata Communications amid a data centre boom. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India expects the global submarine communication cable market to grow 7.2% compounded annually to $40.58 billion in 2028 from $27.57 billion in 2023. The Indian market, the fastest growing in the Asia Pacific region, is expected to reach $78.6 million by 2030.
Opportunities are also opening up for neutral players such as Sify Technologies and Lightstorm, which offer cheaper landing infrastructure in India compared to telecom incumbents such as Airtel and Tata Communications, according to industry insiders.
