Iran warned last week that submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz posed a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, raising concerns about possible attacks on critical infrastructure.
This narrow waterway, already a chokepoint for global oil shipments, is also vital to the digital world. Several fiber optic cables snake across the strait’s seabed, connecting countries in India and Southeast Asia to Europe via the Gulf states and Egypt.
What makes submarine cables important?
Submarine cables are fiber optic or electrical cables laid on the seabed to transmit data and electricity. They carry about 99% of the world’s Internet traffic, according to the ITU, the United Nations’ specialized agency for digital technologies.
They also carry telecommunications and electricity between countries and are essential for cloud services and online communications.
“Damaged cables lead to slowdowns or outages of the Internet, disruptions in e-commerce, delays in financial transactions… and the economic consequences of all these disruptions,” said geopolitical and energy analyst Masha Kotkin.
Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to diversify their economies away from oil. Both countries have created national AI companies serving clients across the region – all relying on undersea cables to move data at lightning speed.
Major cables crossing the Strait of Hormuz include the Asia-Africa-Europe Cable 1 (AAE-1), connecting Southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt, with landing points in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia; the FALCON network, linking India and Sri Lanka to the Gulf countries, Sudan and Egypt; and the Gulf Bridge international cable system, connecting all Gulf countries, including Iran.
Additional networks are under construction, including a system led by Qatari Ooredoo.
In what area are the risks?
While the total length of submarine cables increased significantly between 2014 and 2025, faults have remained stable, around 150 to 200 incidents per year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).
State-sponsored sabotage remains a risk, but 70 to 80 percent of outages are caused by accidental human activities — primarily fishing and ship anchors, according to the ICPC and experts.
Other risks include underwater currents, earthquakes, underwater volcanoes and typhoons, said Alan Mauldin, research director at telecommunications research firm TeleGeography. The industry addresses these problems by burying cables, shielding them and selecting safe routes, he said.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, now nearly two months old, has led to unprecedented disruptions to global energy supplies and regional infrastructure, including attacks on Amazon Web Services data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Submarine cables have so far been spared.
There is, however, an indirect risk if damaged vessels inadvertently strike cables while pulling their anchors.
“In a situation of active military operations, the risk of unintentional damage increases, and the longer this conflict lasts, the higher the probability of unintended damage,” Kotkin said. A similar incident occurred in 2024, when a commercial ship attacked by Iran-aligned Houthis drifted into the Red Sea and severed cables with its anchor.
According to TeleGeography, the extent to which cable damage could impact connectivity in the Gulf countries depends largely on the dependence of individual network operators and the alternatives available to them.
No easy solution
Repairing damaged cables in conflict zones poses another challenge in securing them. Although the physical repair itself is not too complicated, the decisions of repair ship owners and insurers can also be influenced by the risk of damage from combat or the presence of mines, experts say.
Permits to access territorial waters add another layer of difficulty. “Oftentimes one of the biggest problems with repairs is that you have to get a permit to access the waters where the damage is. This can sometimes take a long time and can be the biggest source (of problems),” Mauldin said.
Once the conflict ends, industry players will also face the challenge of re-examining the seabed to determine the safe positions of cables and avoid ships or objects that may have sunk during hostilities, he said.
What are the alternatives in the event of submarine cable failure?
Although potential damage to undersea cables would not result in a complete loss of connectivity – due to terrestrial links – experts agree that satellite systems are not a feasible replacement because they cannot handle the same volume of traffic and are more expensive.
“It’s not like you can just go to satellite. It’s not an alternative,” Mauldin said, noting that satellites rely on connections to terrestrial networks and are better suited to moving objects, like planes and ships.
Low-Earth orbit networks such as Starlink are “a boutique solution, which is not scalable for millions of users, at this time,” Kotkin added.
