Microsoft partners with Singapore’s Lightstorm to build India-Southeast Asia undersea cable

A consortium that includes Microsoft and telecommunications startup Lightstorm plans to build a new undersea cable that will connect India to Malaysia and Singapore as tech firms compete to expand artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing data markets.

The consortium, whose other members include Tata Communications, Singapore Telecommunications, Singapore’s ASEAN Cableship and Japan’s NEC Corporation, will build the I-2SEA cable to support AI, cloud and hyperscale workloads, the companies said on Thursday.

They did not provide additional details, including investment size.

The network will span 3,600 km and have landing stations at Machilipatnam in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Meta and Alphabet have announced data centers.

The cable is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2029, Lightstorm Group CEO and Managing Director Amajit Gupta told Reuters in an interview.

The I Squared-backed company currently connects 19 AI and cloud regions across India through terrestrial fiber cable networks, and the new network is expected to take this number to 29, Gupta said.

Macquarie Equity Research said in a report last October that India’s operational data center capacity could double from the current 1.4 gigawatts by 2027, based on projects under construction, and increase fivefold by 2030 if planned projects are fast-tracked.

Submarine cables carry approximately 95% of the world’s internet traffic. According to TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm, India currently has 17 active subsea cables with a maximum potential capacity of 960 terabits per second, and at least 10 more have been made public.

Gupta said Lightstorm plans to list in India in mid-2027 but did not disclose any other details. The company was seeking a valuation of up to $1.5 billion in March, according to a media report.