Microsoft has joined a consortium led by Singapore-based Lightstorm to build a new subsea cable connecting India with Singapore and Malaysia, the companies announced on Thursday. T
he I-2SEA system will run 3,600 kilometres and is intended to support the AI, cloud and hyperscale workloads that have made India one of the world’s most contested data centre markets.
Alongside Microsoft and Lightstorm, the consortium includes Tata Communications, Singapore’s Singtel, ASEAN Cableship and Japan’s NEC Corporation, which typically handles subsea cable manufacturing and laying for projects of this scale.
The cable is expected to be ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2029, a timeline that gives the group roughly three years to survey routes, secure permits and lay cable across open ocean.
One landing station will sit at Machilipatnam, on the coast of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, chosen for its direct subsea path to data centre clusters further inland around Hyderabad.
