The US-China technology war has gone underwater.

The undersea cables connecting the world via the internet are under scrutiny. While the chip wars between the US and China continue, this intense competition has also extended under the ocean, reaching the cables that encircle the world and span a length of up to 1.4 million kilometers.

The headlines were dominated earlier this year by the cutting of four out of fifteen critical undersea cables in the Red Sea during attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Israeli, US, and UK ships.

As a result, public awareness about undersea cables increased, and these cable networks have become a new source of tension in international relations during a period of heightened geopolitical rivalry between the US and China.

The length of these cables is nearly 1.4 million kilometers

The length of these cables is nearly 1.4 million kilometers, spread across hundreds of massive telecommunications cables buried deep underwater, according to TeleGeometry, a telecommunications market research company.

Some of these cables, like the 131-kilometer CeltixConnect cable connecting Ireland to the UK, are shorter, while others stretch much longer distances, such as the 20,000-kilometer Asia America Gateway cable.

More Undersea Cables to be Laid Across Oceans

Reflecting the increased demand for data traffic due to the proliferation of video streaming and cloud services, the number of undersea cables around the globe is expected to continue rising in the coming years.

TeleGeography reported tracking 574 active and planned undersea cables as of early 2024.

Why Are These Cables Critical?

Undersea cables form the backbone of the global internet, carrying 99% of the world’s intercontinental data traffic. Andy Champagne, Chief Technology Officer at Akamai Labs, commented via email to CNBC, “If you’ve sent an email, exchanged messages, or had a video chat with someone on another continent, you’ve likely relied on an undersea cable without even realizing it.

The US-China technology war has gone underwater_00
Champagne added, “While we connect ourselves with a complex physical network of terrestrial fiber optic cables, diving into the oceans makes the topology more challenging,” and continued:

“Deploying undersea cables is truly complex. And when there’s an issue with an undersea cable, repairing it becomes vital.”

“The impact they create when there’s an outage is incredible,” said Joe Vaccaro, Vice President and General Manager of ThousandEyes, an internet monitoring firm owned by Cisco. Vaccaro noted:

“As citizens like you and me, when we experience internet issues, we don’t say ‘the undersea cable is cut.’ Instead, we notice that the application we’re trying to access suddenly slows down or becomes unusable.”

Vaccaro continued, “When these outages occur, the underlying providers who carry this traffic are forced to dynamically reroute the traffic onto different paths. And what happens when you do that? You encounter congestion at certain levels.”

Growing Security Risk

Traditionally owned and operated by telecom carriers, undersea cables have recently seen significant investments from U.S. tech giants such as Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

In 2021, Meta and Google announced plans to lay two major undersea cables connecting the U.S. West Coast to Singapore and Indonesia. Echo and Bifrost are expected to increase data capacity between regions by 70% and enhance internet reliability across the trans-Pacific cables.

While Meta invests in both cables, Google supports Echo exclusively. Meta previously announced plans to build a 37,000-kilometer undersea cable to improve internet access in Africa, while Google works on Equiano, a cable aiming to connect Africa to Europe.

China Risk

According to unnamed sources at the U.S. State Department cited by The Wall Street Journal in May, U.S. officials privately warned technology firms like Google and Meta about the potential espionage risks posed by Chinese repair ships for Pacific region undersea cables.

The WSJ report indicates that S.B. Submarine Systems, a state-controlled Chinese company assisting in international cable repairs, appears to conceal the locations of its ships from radio and satellite tracking systems.

Meanwhile, Estonia stated that China has not responded to its request for assistance made six months ago in an investigation involving a Chinese vessel suspected of cutting two undersea cables. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later expressed readiness to cooperate with Estonia on the investigation.

Critical for National Security

These developments underscore how undersea cables have become a source of contention in national security issues. The data transmitted through these networks can include high-risk communications such as diplomatic missions coordination, security operations, and intelligence gathering.

Concerns from the U.S. government are not new and are well-documented.

A March 2023 Reuters report highlighted that an interagency committee called Team Telecom was working to prevent any undersea cable from directly connecting U.S. territory to mainland China or Hong Kong due to concerns over Chinese espionage.

Many international undersea cable projects today seem to keep China at a distance due to concerns over data security and Beijing’s expanding geopolitical influence. China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to establish its own submarine cable infrastructure to rival that of the U.S.

Central security vulnerabilities An important issue currently concerning the installation of undersea cables is how connections linking all regions of the world impact a significant portion of the internet infrastructure.

In a statement, Joe Vaccaro from ThousandEyes noted, “If it’s critical for your business to establish a connection between these two points of the world, you need to be aware that a single cable cut in this location can have major implications for all major cloud providers.”

During times of disruption to such critical connections, consumers tend to blame their service providers when a connection is lost or when traffic congestion occurs.

Vaccaro also added that in specific regions, it may be sensible for companies to use a different cloud provider in a different part of the world to ensure consistency in network quality and visibility.

Cables Create Domino Effect When Damaged

Champagne from Akamai noted, “A critical point to remember about undersea cables is that there are specific requirements for where they can transition from undersea to land, and there are limited geographic points that meet these requirements.”

“As a result of these constraints, the loss of a single undersea cable can create a domino effect on the terrestrial networks connected to it,” Champagne concluded, “The impact of a disrupted undersea cable is often much greater than that of a land-based cable outage.”

Scroll to Top
sohpet islami sohbetler omegle tv türk sohbet dini chat cinsel sohbet tıkanıklık açma galeri yetki belgesi nasıl alınır yalama taşı bets10 giriş