Lightstorm, Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build India–Southeast Asia subsea cable system

The proposed I-2SEA cable system will connect India, Malaysia and Singapore, supporting rising demand for AI, cloud and hyperscale infrastructure while providing high-capacity connectivity between key data center hubs across the region.

Lightstorm has signed agreements with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build a new submarine cable system linking India, Malaysia and Singapore, marking a significant infrastructure investment aimed at supporting the growing requirements of artificial intelligence, cloud and hyperscale data center ecosystems across the region.

Named I-2SEA, the cable system is being developed to address increasing demand from hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers and enterprises running AI training and inference workloads along the India–Southeast Asia corridor. The project will connect India's eastern coastline with major digital infrastructure hubs in Southeast Asia, strengthening regional connectivity for data-intensive applications.

The system will provide dual landing points in India, including one at Machilipatnam and another at a new landing site in South Chennai. Through integration with Lightstorm's terrestrial network spanning more than 30,000 kilometres, customers will be able to extend connectivity to key markets such as Hyderabad and Mumbai, as well as more than 80 data centres across the country.

Designed to support growing AI infrastructure demand

According to the company, the cable will link Hyderabad and Chennai—two rapidly expanding data centre markets in India—with Singapore, a major cloud and AI interconnection hub, and Kuala Lumpur, an emerging destination for data centre investments in Southeast Asia.

Targeted to be ready for service by the fourth quarter of 2029, the approximately 3,600-kilometre cable system is expected to provide a direct connectivity route between Singapore, Malaysia and India's eastern coast. Combined with Lightstorm's terrestrial backhaul infrastructure, the project is intended to support low-latency connectivity for AI-driven workloads across 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 & MD, Lightstorm.

The I-2SEA system will be integrated with Lightstorm's SmartNet AI Fabric platform, enabling customers to manage and provision network capacity through the company's Polarin platform. The company said the cable architecture will support carrier-neutral access and interoperable connectivity at both Indian landing stations.

Lightstorm added that resilience has been incorporated into the system's design through route planning and cable burial strategies aimed at enhancing protection and operational reliability. The project will be executed 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 (ACPL) will serve as the marine installation partner. The consortium has opened the system for capacity commitments from prospective customers.