NEC Signs Contract to Supply I-2SEA Submarine Cable System

NEC Corporation, in cooperation with Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel, and Tata Communications, is developing the India-Southeast Asia submarine fiber-optic cable system. This digital infrastructure project addresses the data transmission requirements of hyperscaler data centers and cloud service providers operating across the Asia-Pacific region.

Consortium Roles and Technical Challenges
The project involves a collaborative effort among NEC Corporation, Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel, and Tata Communications. The cooperation is necessary to pool resources, technical expertise, and regional operational capabilities to deploy a cross-border communications network. The initiative addresses the operational challenge of limited bandwidth and the need for diversified communication routes to support high-capacity workloads generated by advanced computing services and regional cloud interconnection hubs.

System Architecture and Implementation
The India-Southeast Asia fiber-optic cable system spans approximately 3,600 kilometers. NEC is responsible for the supply and physical deployment of the submarine network architecture. The system functions by linking geographically dispersed data center corridors, specifically connecting computing clusters in Hyderabad and Chennai in India with cloud hubs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore. The technical solution relies on subsea fiber-optic transmission to ensure low-latency data exchange across these nodes. Operations are scheduled to commence in 2029.

Application Areas and Operational Impact
The primary application for this infrastructure is the interconnection of hyperscale computing facilities and regional data centers. Concrete use cases include the rapid transfer of large datasets required for distributed computing workloads, continuous cloud service synchronization, and cross-border enterprise data replication. The deployment of this system will result in improved process stability for data operators through the diversification of optical transmission routes, thereby enhancing overall network resilience and reducing the risk of single points of failure in the regional communications grid.

Edited by Natania Lyngdoh, Induportals editor, assisted by AI.

www.nec.com