technology
Europe Considers Arctic Cable to Avoid Red Sea Internet Choke Point
Ninety percent of Europe's internet traffic currently passes through the Red Sea, where repeated cable disruptions have occurred amid regional conflicts. An EU-backed project called Polar Connect proposes laying a fiber optic cable across the North Pole to link Scandinavia with Asia.
May 12, 10:31 AM·3m read1 source
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The vast majority of the world's data, including emails, financial transactions and internet traffic, travels via fiber optic cables laid along the ocean floor. These cables converge at a small number of narrow geographic choke points. Policymakers have periodically noted the potential risks of this arrangement, though the routes remain the shortest available and have been in use in some cases since the telegraph era.
Cables are severed on a regular basis, with traffic rerouted until specialized repair ships can recover the ends from the seafloor, splice the fibers and restore service. The process requires calm conditions and cannot be performed safely in active conflict zones.
Disruptions in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf have prompted governments and companies to examine alternate paths, including one across the Arctic. The current difficulties began in 2024 when a Houthi missile struck a cargo ship in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen.
The drifting vessel dragged its anchor across three submarine cables in the narrow passage. Repair of those cables took more than four months because agreements had to be negotiated to allow a repair ship into the area. That incident also required months of negotiations before repairs could be completed.
Sea outages occurred, traffic shifted toward the Persian Gulf. Subsequent developments in Iran have halted cable projects there. Roderick Beck, a cable industry veteran who sources telecom capacity for internet service providers, said the Persian Gulf will never go back to what it was before.
Gulf states have been expanding data centers to support artificial intelligence as they diversify from oil. Some are now pursuing overland routes to Europe through Syria, Iraq and Oman. In Europe, attention has turned to the Arctic. An EU panel on cable resilience recommended earlier this year that two Arctic cables be built to reach Asia without traversing the Red Sea, where 90 percent of Europe's traffic currently passes.
