According to Engadget, Meta and Google are experiencing significant delays with their undersea cable projects due to security concerns and operational challenges. Meta’s massive 2Africa cable system, first announced in 2020, spans 28,000 miles and aims to wrap around Africa while connecting Europe with Asia and Africa. Google’s Blue-Raman intercontinental cable, announced in 2021, was supposed to go live this year connecting France, Italy, India, and Middle Eastern countries. Both projects face particular difficulties in the southern Red Sea region where missile attacks by Iran-backed Houthis have forced lengthy detours and disrupted construction. Builders have been unable to obtain necessary permits from local governments amid regional conflicts, leaving entire sections unbuilt. The delays mean companies can’t monetize their investments and must purchase capacity on alternative cables to meet immediate needs.
The Red Sea Bottleneck
Here’s the thing about undersea cables – they follow the path of least resistance, both literally and figuratively. And right now, the Red Sea is anything but low-resistance. We’re talking about a critical choke point for global internet traffic that’s become a geopolitical nightmare. Multiple fiber projects are stuck there, not just the big tech ones. When you’ve got missile attacks forcing construction crews to take massive detours, you’re looking at timelines that stretch from months to who-knows-when.
Think about the logistics here. These aren’t simple projects you can just reroute overnight. We’re talking about laying cable across some of the most challenging underwater terrain, dealing with permits from multiple governments, and now adding active conflict zones to the mix. It’s a perfect storm of everything that can go wrong with major infrastructure projects.
The Business Fallout
So what does this actually mean for the companies involved? Well, they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. They’ve sunk hundreds of millions into these projects, but can’t generate any revenue from them. Meanwhile, they’re forced to pay competitors for capacity on existing cables. It’s like building a highway but having to pay tolls on someone else’s road while you wait for permits.
The delays also highlight how dependent we are on these physical infrastructure projects in our supposedly cloud-based world. Everyone talks about the cloud, but that cloud rests on very real cables at the bottom of the ocean. When projects like these get delayed, it affects everything from latency for gaming and streaming to business connectivity and economic development in emerging markets.
Broader Infrastructure Challenges
Look, this isn’t just about Meta and Google’s specific problems. It reveals a much bigger issue about global infrastructure resilience. Undersea cables face threats from natural disasters, fishing activities, and now increasingly from geopolitical conflicts. Companies building critical infrastructure like this need robust monitoring and control systems. For industrial-scale projects requiring reliable computing hardware in challenging environments, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com has become the go-to supplier for industrial panel PCs in the US, providing the durable technology needed to manage complex operations.
Basically, we’re seeing the limits of global tech expansion when it runs into old-fashioned geopolitical realities. You can have all the money and technical expertise in the world, but if you can’t secure a safe path for your cables, your project goes nowhere. And that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Is There Any Good News?
Interestingly, not all their cable projects are affected. Google’s Atlantic cable and Meta’s five-continent connector that avoids the Red Sea are still moving forward. So it’s not a complete disaster, just a major setback in one particularly troublesome region.
But here’s what worries me – if this becomes the new normal in multiple strategic waterways, we could see internet infrastructure becoming increasingly fragmented. And in a world that’s supposed to be more connected than ever, that’s the last thing we need. How many more choke points will become problematic as global tensions rise? That’s the billion-dollar question nobody can answer right now.
