How geopolitics is rerouting submarine cables#

Jocelinn Kang — Nodalys

• Why: Not something the PM would search for, but it reframes intercontinental capacity planning as a geopolitical exercise — cables now follow politics and hyperscaler balance sheets, not shortest paths. This changes how long-haul interconnect and DC site decisions get made.
• What: The subsea industry's two new shapers: hyperscalers — Google, Meta, AWS, Microsoft account for >70% of global subcable bandwidth usage (2023), connecting data centers rather than population centers and vertically integrating supply chains (cables in service grew from ~130 in 2010 to 570 in 2025) — and geostrategic competition, exercised through permits and licenses (increasingly hard Chinese permits for South China Sea routes, so installers avoid the SCS; US opposition to US–China/Hong Kong landings, rerouting systems to SEA and Australia) and supply-chain exclusion. Case studies: PLCN, BtoBE→CAP-1, SEA-ME-WE 6, SJC2. Also covered: minilateral state partnerships (Coral Sea, Palau, East Micronesia, Google's Pacific Connect including Tuvalu), historical wartime cable cutting (1898, 1914), peacetime surveillance (Ivy Bells, Snowden disclosures), current hybrid-warfare activity (Baltic and Taiwan cable incidents, Salt Typhoon, an attempted cyber attack on submarine-cable management systems in Oahu), and the net effect: Hong Kong losing hub appeal while Australia rises as a safer Indo-Pacific route and digital hub.
• How: Case-study narrative with maps and a breakdown of the concrete levers (permits, licenses, vendor participation, vessel access) through which governments now shape physical topology.
• Where applicable: Analyst/consultant perspective with no hands-on technique — but directly relevant input to anyone doing trans-Pacific capacity planning, DC site selection, or evaluating route diversity claims on submarine cables. Australian-market lens.