New Delhi, Tata Communications on Tuesday announced an investment of $152 million to strengthen its subsea cable infrastructure between India and Singapore, aiming to meet the surging demand for bandwidth and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data.
The company will add approximately 98 terabits per second (Tbps) of capacity through two major subsea cable initiatives connecting the emerging AI hubs of Mumbai and Chennai with Singapore.
The investments for both projects will be funded entirely through internal accruals, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Tata Communications will invest $63 million in the MIST cable system connecting Mumbai and Singapore in FY27.
This system is expected to be ready for service by the fourth quarter of FY27, bringing an additional capacity of 20 Tbps.
Furthermore, the company will invest USD 89 million as a consortium member in 'Project CS', a new subsea cable system connecting Chennai to Singapore. This project, slated for completion in the third quarter of FY31, will add about 78 Tbps of capacity.
The enhanced India-Singapore route is designed to serve as a high-capacity, low-latency digital corridor, underpinning critical enterprise, cloud and hyperscaler traffic between India, Southeast Asia and global markets.
"By combining subsea capacity enhancement with both short-term and long-term strategic investments, we are strengthening the reliability, scalability and performance of connectivity solutions for our customers across one of the world's busiest digital corridors. These enhancements align with Tata Communications' long-term strategy to expand its global subsea network footprint, provide business outcome solutions to customers and reinforce India's position as a Digital Hub," said Genius Wong, Executive Vice President - Core and Next-Gen Connectivity Services, and Chief Technology Officer at Tata Communications.
The new subsea cables will integrate with Tata Communications' terrestrial fibre network, providing onward connectivity to over 100 data centres across India.
Currently, the company operates an existing capacity of approximately 270 Tbps across its global subsea network, with a current capacity utilisation of 172 Tbps. The network spans over 5,00,000 kilometres of subsea optical fibre and 2,00,000 kilometres of terrestrial fibre.
