Hyderabad: Lightstorm Thursday said it has signed contracts with Microsoft, Singtel and Tata Communications to build I-2SEA, a new submarine cable system connecting India, Malaysia and Singapore to support artificial intelligence and cloud workloads across the region.The 3,600-kilometre system is being designed for hyperscalers, GPU infrastructure providers and enterprises running AI training and inference between India and Southeast Asia. It is targeted to be ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2029.I-2SEA will connect Singapore and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur data centre corridor with India’s east coast, with dual Indian landings at Machilipatnam and a new diverse site in South Chennai.Lightstorm said the Machilipatnam landing will provide the shortest subsea access and fastest transmission on any Singapore-Malaysia cable to Hyderabad, one of India’s fastest-growing AI and hyperscale data centre clusters.Customers will be able to connect to Lightstorm’s 30,000-kilometre terrestrial network, reaching Hyderabad, Mumbai and more than 80 data centres in India, it said.Lightstorm said the cable will extend its SmartNet AI Fabric into subsea connectivity, offering low-jitter, loss- optimised transport across data centres, cloud hubs and distributed AI zones.The company will operate the Indian landing stations and provide network management through SmartNet AI Fabric and its Polarin platform for on-demand provisioning and real-time visibility.“On our network, AI regions across India, Malaysia and Singapore will be connected by a single, purpose-built, end-to-end system — engineered for the performance and scale that AI infrastructure requires ,” Lightstorm Group CEO and managing director Amajit Gupta said.The system will use interoperable cable architecture and carrier-neutral landing infrastructure. It is also planned with deep burial of up to three meters across buried sections to improve protection and uptime.NEC Corporation has been appointed system supplier, while ASEAN Cableship Pte Ltd will handle marine installation. The consortium said it is now open for capacity commitments.
