Iran warned last week that submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz are a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, raising concerns about critical infrastructure attacks.
The narrow waterway, a global oil chokepoint, is equally vital for the digital world.
Fibre-optic cables snake across its seabed, connecting India and Southeast Asia to Europe via Gulf states and Egypt.
Subsea cables, fibre-optic or electrical lines laid on the seabed, transmit vital data and power.
These conduits carry around 99 per cent of global internet traffic, according to the ITU, the UN’s specialised agency for digital technologies. They are also crucial for international telecommunications, electricity, cloud services, and online communications.
Geopolitical and energy analyst Masha Kotkin said: “Damaged cables mean the internet slowing down or outages, e-commerce disruptions, delayed financial transactions … and economic fallout from all of these disruptions.”
Gulf countries, notably the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are investing billions in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to diversify their oil-dependent economies.
Both have established national AI companies serving the region, all reliant on undersea cables for rapid data transfer.
Major cables through the Strait of Hormuz include the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1), connecting Southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt, with landing points in the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia; the FALCON network, connecting India and Sri Lanka to Gulf countries, Sudan, and Egypt; and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System, linking all Gulf countries including Iran.
Additional networks are under construction, including a system led by Qatar’s Ooredoo.
While the total length of submarine cables has grown considerably between 2014 and 2025, faults have remained stable at around 150–200 incidents per year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).
State-sponsored sabotage remains a risk, but 70–80 per cent of faults are caused by accidental human activities — primarily fishing and ship anchors, according to the ICPC and experts.
Other risks include undersea currents, earthquakes, subsea volcanoes, and typhoons, said Alan Mauldin, research director at telecom research firm TeleGeography. The industry addresses these by burying cables, armouring them, and selecting safe routes, he said.
The Iran war, nearing the two-month mark, has brought unprecedented disruption to global energy supply and regional infrastructure, including hits to Amazon Web Services data centers in Bahrain and the UAE. Subsea cables have been spared so far.
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