Big tech and geopolitics are reshaping the internet’s plumbing
Submarine cables used to be seen as the internet’s dull plumbing. Now giants of the data economy, such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, are asserting more control over the flow of data, even as tensions between China and America risk splintering the world’s digital infrastructure. The result is to turn undersea cables into prized economic and strategic assets.
Subsea data pipes carry almost 99% of intercontinental internet traffic. TeleGeography, a research firm, reckons…