Lightstorm to build I-2SEA subsea cable linking Singapore and Hyderabad

On Thursday, technology infrastructure provider Lightstorm announced that it has signed contracts with Microsoft, Singtel, and Tata Communications to construct a new 3,600-kilometre submarine cable system. Known as 'I-2SEA', the project will connect Singapore and Malaysia directly with India's east coast, establishing high-speed data connectivity to Hyderabad to support the city's expanding artificial intelligence and cloud workloads.

The new subsea cable system is being designed specifically for hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers, and enterprises that run complex artificial intelligence training and inference between India and Southeast Asia. According to the announcement made on Thursday, the entire system is targeted to be ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2029.

Geographically, the I-2SEA system will connect Singapore and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur data centre corridor with India’s east coast. The infrastructure project features dual Indian landing sites, which will be established at Machilipatnam and a new diverse site located in South Chennai.

Lightstorm noted that the landing site at Machilipatnam will provide the shortest subsea access and the fastest transmission on any Singapore-Malaysia cable to Hyderabad. The company identified Hyderabad as one of India’s fastest-growing artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centre clusters.

Once the system is fully operational, customers will have the ability to connect to Lightstorm’s existing 30,000-kilometre terrestrial network. This terrestrial infrastructure currently reaches Hyderabad, Mumbai, and more than 80 data centres across India.

According to Lightstorm, the new cable will extend the company's SmartNet AI Fabric into subsea connectivity. This is intended to offer low-jitter and loss-optimised transport across various data centres, cloud hubs, and distributed artificial intelligence zones throughout the region.