IRGC Warns of Vulnerability in Strait of Hormuz Undersea Data Cables

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has warned that undersea data cables running through the Strait of Hormuz are highly vulnerable to accidental or deliberate action. The report, published Wednesday by the Tasnim news agency, cautioned that "simultaneous damage to several major cables" may trigger outages across the Persian Gulf. "Simultaneous damage to several major cables — whether through accidents or deliberate action — could trigger severe outages across the Persian Gulf," the agency said.

The Strait of Hormuz is famously known as one of the world's most important oil chokepoint as well as a vital digital artery due to the presence of a dense web of fiber-optic cables beneath its waters that serve as the backbone for global communication. If these cables snap, the impact would be felt far beyond the Middle East. This is because these lines carry an estimated 17% to 30% of regional internet traffic, connecting Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Moreover, these cables power massive AI infrastructure hubs in the UAE and Saudi Arabia backed by tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. These cables are also central to global financial transactions and cloud services to daily emails and video calls relies on this underwater network.

The undersea network runs through landing stations in several countries currently adjacent to the conflict zone, including Oman, the UAE, and Pakistan. As one of the world's largest consumers of data, India's digital economy is heavily dependent on these connections. A disruption would likely lead to reduction in internet speeds for millions of users, unreliability in cloud services and digital payment systems, and economic consequences for India's massive IT and AI-powered service sectors.

Previously, Alcatel Submarine Networks, the French state-owned company responsible for laying the cable, has issued force majeure notices to customers. This means that it has notified its contractual partner that due to an unforeseeable event, they are being prevented from fulfilling their obligations. The company has also reported the stranding of its installation ship, the Ile De Batz, off the coast of Dammam, Saudi Arabia, according to a Bloomberg report. Facebook-parent company Meta has already stopped working on undersea cables, a report by Bloomberg said in a report previously.