Red Sea Conflict Forces Google And Meta To Delay Underwater Cable Projects

JAKARTA - Meta and Google were forced to postpone a number of giant underwater internet cable projects including 2Africa and Blue-Raman due to increased security risks in the Red Sea corridor, an area that flows around 20% of global internet traffic.

This delay forced companies to use more expensive alternative routes and highlighted how geopolitical instability could threaten the world's digital infrastructure.

The next generation of internet infrastructure development competition faces major obstacles in one of the world's most important sea routes. Meta and Google have confirmed the delay in the strategic fiber optic cable project that was supposed to pass through the Red Sea. The main cause is the escalation of conflict and the increasing threat of security in the region.

The affected projects include:

2Africa (Meta): The giant cable system that surrounds the African continent and connects it with Europe and Asia. The southern red sea segment is now uncontinued.

Blue-Raman (Google): The intercontinental cable system, which was originally scheduled to be active in 2024, is now delayed indefinitely.

Geopolitical conflicts including reports of missile attacks make the area too dangerous for the operation of cable pulling vessels and crew. This condition forced the company to temporarily suspend the construction of the large data line.

The Red Sea has a vital role in global communication networks:

Becoming the most direct and cost-effective pathway between Europe, Asia and Africa.

Distributing about one fifth of the world's internet traffic.

The damage to cables in the region has previously caused major impacts, including the diversion of traffic around Africa which has caused latency to increase and the connection to be slower.

This delay has major financial consequences. Apart from not being able to immediately monetize their billions of dollars in investment, Google and Meta must also buy a bandwidth from alternative routes that are longer, slower, and often already crowded.

Even though the Red Sea segment was stopped, the two companies continued to build projects in safer areas. For example:

Google is still working on cables connecting Togo to Europe via the Atlantic.

Meta continues to develop a large network designed to connect five continents.

The postponement of the 2Africa and Blue-Raman projects confirms the new challenges facing the world: dependence on conflict-prone areas makes global internet reliability very sensitive to the political situation. Until the cable segment in the Red Sea can be installed safely, the stability of international networks will remain in a fragile condition.