The Hidden Data Chokepoint Beneath the Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints. Nearly 20 percent of global oil supplies pass through this narrow waterway, making any disruption there a major concern for energy markets.

But oil is not the only critical resource moving through this region.

Far below the surface, submarine fiber-optic cables carry enormous volumes of digital information between continents. These cables connect Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the wider global internet. A serious disruption to them would not simply mean slower browsing. It could affect financial transactions, cloud services, communications, businesses, and other systems that depend on continuous international data flows.

In 2026, the vulnerability has become particularly significant because two major data corridors—the Red Sea and the waters surrounding the Strait of Hormuz are facing heightened pressure at the same time.

The result is an overlooked form of strategic vulnerability: the same region that serves as a gateway for global energy also contains infrastructure essential to the movement of global information.

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The Internet Runs Beneath the Ocean

The modern internet is often associated with satellites, wireless networks, and data centers. Yet most international internet traffic does not travel through satellites.

Around 95 percent of international data including video calls, financial transactions, messages, and other communications between continents is carried by physical submarine cables resting on the ocean floor.

More than 570 submarine cable systems operate worldwide, stretching for more than 1.4 million kilometers. Their routes are not randomly distributed. Like oil pipelines and shipping lanes, submarine cables follow established corridors and frequently converge around geographical chokepoints.

One of the most important data routes between Asia and Europe passes through the Red Sea and the wider Middle Eastern region.

The Red Sea alone contains 17 submarine cables, which the script estimates carry roughly 30 percent of global internet traffic. Additional cables operate through Omani waters near the Strait of Hormuz, with routes carefully designed to avoid Iranian territory.

That routing reflects a longstanding combination of engineering requirements and geopolitical considerations. But the cables remain close enough to a strategically sensitive region that political and military tensions can still create risks.

The Strait of Hormuz region, therefore, is more than a route for energy. It is part of a much larger network moving information around the world.

Critical Cables Around the Gulf

Submarine cable networks in the region have been designed with existing geopolitical tensions in mind. Engineers have attempted to route cables through safer waters while balancing technical requirements with political realities.

For years, these arrangements operated largely as intended. But constructing a cable is only part of the challenge. The systems must also be inspected, maintained, and repaired when something goes wrong.

Several major cable systems illustrate the importance of the region.

The Europe-Persia Express Gateway, or EPEG, links Europe with India through the Middle East. SeaMeWe-5 is one of the world’s longest submarine cable systems, connecting Southeast Asia with Europe. The 2Africa Pearls system is designed to support connectivity for billions of users across Africa, South Asia, and the Gulf.

These are not merely emergency backup networks. They form part of the primary infrastructure through which international data moves.

The importance of these cables has also increased as major technology companies have invested heavily in regional data infrastructure. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have invested billions of dollars in data centers across the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Those data centers still depend on the wider connectivity provided by submarine cables.

The vulnerability became particularly visible in March 2026, when Meta suspended work on extending one of its cable systems in the region. The decision highlighted a growing challenge: building and expanding physical digital infrastructure in an active conflict environment can become increasingly difficult.

The threat is not theoretical. Previous cable disruptions have demonstrated how quickly damage to a small number of underwater connections can affect networks far beyond the immediate location.

What Happens When Submarine Cables Are Cut?

In 2024, a damaged cargo ship in the Red Sea began drifting, with its anchor dragging across the seabed. The anchor damaged several submarine cables.

The incident demonstrated an important characteristic of the global internet: a damaged cable does not necessarily cause the internet to go offline.

Instead, traffic can be redirected through alternative routes.

That redundancy provides resilience, but it does not eliminate the consequences. When a major cable is lost, its traffic must be redistributed across other networks that may already be operating close to capacity.

The result can include slower connections, increased latency, and congestion.

The effects can extend into business operations as well. The script describes difficulties experienced by call centers in India and the United Arab Emirates, along with latency spikes affecting financial systems.

Further cable damage occurred in 2025, with repairs extending over several months. This illustrates another major difference between submarine cables and many other forms of infrastructure.

A damaged pipeline or road can sometimes be repaired using relatively straightforward replacement operations. Submarine cable repairs require specialized vessels, equipment, suitable weather conditions, and access to the affected section of the seabed.

A cable cannot simply be replaced overnight.

Each system carries large amounts of dedicated capacity. When one is removed from service, the remaining routes have to absorb the displaced traffic. If multiple cables are damaged, the pressure on those alternative routes can increase substantially.

The Risk of a Dual Chokepoint

The vulnerability becomes more serious when cable damage occurs in an area where repair operations are already difficult.

Cable-repair capacity in the region is limited, and reaching damaged infrastructure can become considerably harder during an armed conflict. Repair vessels may face security risks, access restrictions, or operational challenges.

At the same time, the Red Sea represents another major submarine cable corridor facing security concerns.

If the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz routes were both seriously disrupted at the same time, the global network would have far fewer alternatives available. This is sometimes described as a dual-chokepoint risk.

The significance lies in the nature of digital infrastructure itself.

Oil can be stored. Strategic petroleum reserves can temporarily compensate for disruptions in supply. Data operates differently. Modern digital systems depend on continuous, real-time connectivity.

Financial transactions, cloud applications, communications, business operations, and countless other services depend on data moving continuously between networks.

The network can reroute traffic, but rerouting does not create new capacity instantly.

Why India Faces Particular Exposure

India provides a useful example of how regional cable vulnerabilities can translate into national risks.

According to the script, around 60 percent of India’s internet traffic flows westward through the Arabian Sea toward the Red Sea and onward to Europe, while the remainder travels east.

India has multiple submarine cable landing stations, providing connections to international networks. However, having several landing stations does not necessarily mean having completely independent global routes. Many of those connections ultimately feed into the same major international corridors.

If those corridors are disrupted, the number of practical alternatives can therefore be limited.

The script states that Indian authorities had begun preparing contingency plans in 2026 in response to these risks.

Other Gulf states—including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar—also rely heavily on the same regional connectivity infrastructure.

Land-based alternatives exist, but they have limitations. They can be slower, more expensive, and unable to provide the same capacity as the major submarine cable systems.

Industry executives have consequently warned that existing networks were not designed around the assumption of a major regional war.

Undersea Cables Are Becoming Strategic Infrastructure

The issue extends well beyond the Middle East.

Undersea telecommunications cables are increasingly being treated as strategic infrastructure because they support financial networks, cloud platforms, communications systems, and other essential services.

In late 2024, several cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged under suspicious circumstances. Investigations examined possible sabotage, highlighting the growing concern surrounding deliberate interference with undersea infrastructure.

Military planners in several countries now consider submarine cables critical infrastructure precisely because disrupting them can affect a country’s systems without physically destroying its cities or conventional infrastructure.

Cable damage itself is not unusual. Hundreds of cable-related incidents occur globally each year, and most are accidental. Anchors, fishing activity, natural events, and other routine maritime operations can damage cables.

The concern is that some incidents may be deliberate.

That creates a different form of strategic conflict one that can be indirect and difficult to detect, while still producing significant consequences.

Why Protecting the Network Is So Difficult

Efforts are underway to reduce dependence on vulnerable routes.

New submarine cable systems are being planned along alternative paths, while companies such as Meta are investing in additional global connectivity routes. Governments are also increasingly treating cable infrastructure as a security priority.

Satellite networks offer another potential layer of redundancy. Low-Earth-orbit satellite systems, in particular, are being considered as backup options for disrupted terrestrial and submarine networks.

But satellites cannot currently replicate the capacity of submarine cables.

Even advanced satellite networks provide only a fraction of the capacity offered by a single major submarine cable system. They can serve as a lifeline during disruptions, but they are not a direct replacement for the enormous bandwidth provided by undersea fiber.

Building new cables and alternative routes also takes years.

That creates a fundamental problem: the global digital infrastructure that exists today cannot simply be redesigned whenever a geopolitical risk emerges.

For now, some of the most important data connections between Asia and Europe continue to depend on the same broad corridors around the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz region.

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Two Chokepoints, One Global System

For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has primarily been viewed as an energy chokepoint a narrow and strategically important passage through which enormous quantities of oil move.

The events and infrastructure developments surrounding the region reveal another dimension.

It is also connected to the global data network.

Oil and information, fuel and communication, can both depend on infrastructure concentrated around the same strategically sensitive geography.

The world has spent decades developing mechanisms to manage energy disruptions, including strategic reserves and alternative supply routes. Digital infrastructure presents a different challenge because information must continue moving in real time.

The consequences of a major cable disruption would not necessarily resemble a sudden global internet shutdown. Instead, the effects could appear through slower connections, increased latency, congestion, disrupted financial systems, and interruptions to communications and cloud dependent services.

And if multiple major corridors were affected simultaneously, the consequences could extend well beyond the immediate region.

The critical infrastructure at stake is largely invisible. It lies beneath the ocean surface, connecting continents through thousands of kilometers of fiber optic cable.

That makes submarine cables easy to overlook but increasingly difficult for the global economy to do without.