Why the Next Big Thing in Tech Is Under the Sea
With international traffic emerging as a high-growth area and global connectivity demands accelerating, especially due to artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based workloads, Ciena is responding to these shifts through innovation, strategic partnerships, and technological leadership.
In an exclusive interview with Telecom Review Asia, Brian Lavallée, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Ciena, shed light on the transformative trends shaping the submarine cable industry in 2025 and beyond.
From Ciena’s perspective, what major trends are shaping the evolution of the submarine cable industry in 2025 and beyond?
According to TeleGeography’s IP Networks Research Service, Asia is the world’s second-fastest growing region for international traffic and remains a key hub of internet activity.
To address the surging bandwidth needs of the transpacific corridor, as well as intra-Asia demands, there’s been a surge in submarine cable construction from global hyperscalers, wholesale network providers, and consortia. Additionally, submarine cable operators in the region are constantly looking at how they can upgrade their cables to sustainably expand existing capacity while remaining adaptable to inevitable change due to constantly changing market conditions and increasing geopolitical challenges.
For example, due to geopolitical sensitivities and growth in emerging markets, several new transpacific cables and associated cable landing stations (CLS) have been announced in Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Singapore, resulting in much needed increases in cable routes and landing station diversity.
Today, innovative technologies are available to allow capacity to be flexibly added to transoceanic corridors, extend the life of existing wet plant assets, open traditionally closed wet plants to best-of-breed vendors, and enable unprecedented capacities on both existing and new submarine cables.
Along with operations software, data-driven analytics, and intelligent automation, these advancements significantly improve submarine business agility and margins.
AI is expected to become a powerful force, requiring more submarine network bandwidth. While much of today’s AI traffic is concentrated within and between terrestrial data center campuses, this dynamic is changing. As machine-to-machine (M2M) communications increase, AI workloads, such as training and inferencing, are expected to “spill out” to the rest of the global network and place demands on long-haul, overland, and undersea networks.
At the same time, we see a critical need for greater industry-wide collaboration. The submarine networking space cannot operate in silos. Network operators, technology vendors, cloud providers, policymakers, and academic institutions all have a role to play in ensuring we build scalable, sustainable, and secure networks for the future. The challenge, and opportunity, lies in breaking down historical technical, operational, and institutional barriers to strengthen cross-industry connections as demand and complexity continue to grow across critical submarine network infrastructure.
Are there any specific regional dynamics or deployment strategies that Ciena sees as particularly promising in the submarine cable space?
The momentum in the submarine cable space is not confined to one geography. New opportunities are emerging across several key regions to meet localized demands.
In the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, for example, we’ve seen a wave of investment in new cable routes that are dramatically improving international connectivity and expanding internet access to historically underserved communities and nations. Specifically, the 2Africa cable system, set to go live in late 2025, will span 45,000 kilometers and will be the world’s longest submarine network system connecting 33 countries.
In the Asia Pacific, the transpacific corridor continues to be a critical focus for hyperscalers, wholesale network providers, and consortia. The demand for bandwidth in this region is growing rapidly, with cities like Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Jakarta (Indonesia) emerging as fast-growing hubs for international traffic in Q1, 2025, according to TeleGeography. To meet these needs, network operators are not only constructing new cables but prioritizing upgrades to address both intra-Asia and transoceanic demands.
The key enabler in all of this is constant and relentless innovation. Today, innovative new technologies are enabling unprecedented capacities on both existing and new submarine cables to extend the life of undersea network assets. Coupled with cutting-edge software for network operations, data-powered analytics, and intelligent automation, these advancements are enhancing submarine network agility and improving margins, allowing operators to respond more dynamically to future-proof their assets.
How is Ciena leveraging its optical networking expertise to address the growing demands of data-intensive applications, including those set to be driven by AI and ever-expanding cloud infrastructure?
Over a decade ago, we redefined the model for undersea and terrestrial backhaul with GeoMesh Extreme.
We were the first supplier to deploy coherent optical transmission on submarine networks via WaveLogic Extreme, and today, our innovations have enabled huge increases in data traffic over submarine networks and a more than 90% reduction in watts/gigabits per second in our customers’ networks.
GeoMesh Extreme, powered by our latest WaveLogic 6 Extreme technology, will allow for 1Tbps wavelength transmission across 12,000 km of submarine network links, representing a world first.
Can you discuss Ciena’s recent partnerships and how these collaborations are influencing advancements in the submarine cable ecosystem?
Ciena is a market leader in the submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) upgrade market, and this is a testament to our technical leadership and the trust we’ve earned by consistently delivering real-world results over production networks carrying live traffic. Ciena’s approach to submarine networks is more than just technology; it’s about enabling seamless and reliable connectivity between submarine, terrestrial, and cloud networks. We’re dedicated to helping operators of all kinds build networks that can sustainably scale and evolve to meet the demands of an increasingly interconnected, AI-driven world. We are proud to work alongside some of the most visionary operators worldwide, including Southern Cross, Colt, and Aqua Comms.
Many of these collaborations have resulted in industry milestones, such as when Southern Cross connected two key centers via Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme, in the industry’s first 1 Tbps implementation across the Pacific Ocean. With WaveLogic 6 Extreme’s leading-edge coherent optical technology, Southern Cross can provide an end-to-end connectivity solution across higher-capacity wavelengths, using less space and power and capably delivering 400-GbE and 800-GbE client services.
Similarly, Colt also completed a successful trial of the first-ever 1.2 Tbps wavelength transmission across the Atlantic, using Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme powered by our WaveLogic 6 Extreme. Following the successful trial, Colt plans to deploy WaveLogic 6 Extreme in its production network to push transatlantic network performance to new limits while improving energy efficiency.
