Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel, Tata Communications To Build India-SEA Submarine Cable
Lightstorm signed agreements with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build a submarine cable system connecting India, Malaysia and Singapore.
Lightstorm has signed agreements with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build a new submarine cable system connecting India, Malaysia and Singapore, as demand for AI infrastructure and high-capacity digital connectivity continues to grow across the region.
Named I-2SEA, the 3,600-km cable system is expected to be ready for service by the fourth quarter of 2029. It has been designed to support hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers and enterprises running artificial intelligence training and inference workloads between India and Southeast Asia.
The cable will have dual landing stations in India, at Machilipatnam on the east coast and at a new landing site in South Chennai. According to the company, the Machilipatnam landing will provide the shortest subsea route to Hyderabad, one of India’s fastest-growing AI and hyperscale data centre markets.
Customers will also be able to connect to Lightstorm’s terrestrial fibre network spanning more than 30,000 km, providing onward connectivity to Hyderabad, Mumbai and over 80 data centres across the country.
Targeted at AI-driven workloads, the cable will directly link India’s emerging AI infrastructure with Singapore, a major cloud and AI hub, and Malaysia’s growing data centre corridor around Kuala Lumpur. Lightstorm said the network is expected to offer low-latency connectivity between Singapore, Malaysia and Hyderabad, a key corridor for AI applications in the region.
“Lightstorm works around a single mission: interconnecting intelligence. As majority owner of I-2SEA and with SmartNet AI Fabric already delivering AI-ready transport across data centers and GPU clusters in India, we can now offer the natural extension of that platform into the subsea domain. On our network, AI regions across India, Malaysia, and Singapore will be connected by a single, purpose-built, end-to-end system — engineered for the performance and scale that AI infrastructure requires,” said Amajit Gupta, Group CEO and Managing Director, Lightstorm.
The cable system will be integrated with Lightstorm’s SmartNet AI Fabric and managed through its Polarin platform, enabling customers to provision, scale and monitor network capacity in real time. The company said the system has also been designed with resilience in mind, incorporating deep cable burial and route planning to improve network protection and uptime.
The project is being developed under a Joint Build Agreement between Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications. NEC Corporation has been appointed as the system supplier, while ASEAN Cableship Pte Ltd will oversee marine installation. The consortium has opened the system for capacity commitments.
Lightstorm has signed agreements with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build a new submarine cable system connecting India, Malaysia and Singapore, as demand for AI infrastructure and high-capacity digital connectivity continues to grow across the region.
Named I-2SEA, the 3,600-km cable system is expected to be ready for service by the fourth quarter of 2029. It has been designed to support hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers and enterprises running artificial intelligence training and inference workloads between India and Southeast Asia.
The cable will have dual landing stations in India, at Machilipatnam on the east coast and at a new landing site in South Chennai. According to the company, the Machilipatnam landing will provide the shortest subsea route to Hyderabad, one of India’s fastest-growing AI and hyperscale data centre markets.
Customers will also be able to connect to Lightstorm’s terrestrial fibre network spanning more than 30,000 km, providing onward connectivity to Hyderabad, Mumbai and over 80 data centres across the country.
Targeted at AI-driven workloads, the cable will directly link India’s emerging AI infrastructure with Singapore, a major cloud and AI hub, and Malaysia’s growing data centre corridor around Kuala Lumpur. Lightstorm said the network is expected to offer low-latency connectivity between Singapore, Malaysia and Hyderabad, a key corridor for AI applications in the region.
“Lightstorm works around a single mission: interconnecting intelligence. As majority owner of I-2SEA and with SmartNet AI Fabric already delivering AI-ready transport across data centers and GPU clusters in India, we can now offer the natural extension of that platform into the subsea domain. On our network, AI regions across India, Malaysia, and Singapore will be connected by a single, purpose-built, end-to-end system — engineered for the performance and scale that AI infrastructure requires,” said Amajit Gupta, Group CEO and Managing Director, Lightstorm.
The cable system will be integrated with Lightstorm’s SmartNet AI Fabric and managed through its Polarin platform, enabling customers to provision, scale and monitor network capacity in real time. The company said the system has also been designed with resilience in mind, incorporating deep cable burial and route planning to improve network protection and uptime.
The project is being developed under a Joint Build Agreement between Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications. NEC Corporation has been appointed as the system supplier, while ASEAN Cableship Pte Ltd will oversee marine installation. The consortium has opened the system for capacity commitments.