The 23-24 September event at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre brought together more than 1,500 subsea fibre leaders and 150+ speakers from across the globe, presenting across seven dedicated theatres. Organiser Terrapinn billed it as the largest edition yet of the world’s biggest annual gathering for the global subsea telecommunications industry, with an exhibition floor featuring more than 70 solution and service providers.
It was fantastic to spend time in meetings with the industry and to update the market on the progress of our cable projects portfolio.
A few themes stood out:
AI is driving the agenda. Discussion focused on what AI-scale demand means for capacity, route diversity and the subsea and terrestrial networks that connect data centres across Asia-Pacific. Pre-event sessions, including Nokia’s masterclass the day before, framed this as the defining shift for the industry, with cloud and telecom providers setting out their subsea deployment plans against surging AI compute demand.
Subsea security took centre stage. This year’s new Subsea Security World theatre, launched for the first time alongside the main event, drew in policymakers, government agencies, navy and coastguard representatives and academics alongside cable owners, operators and technology providers. Attendees included Nadia Krivetz, Director of Australia’s Cable Resilience & Connectivity Centre at DFAT, and Captain Brett Dawe, the Royal Australian Navy’s liaison officer to the Republic of Singapore Navy, reflecting how far cable protection has moved up the government and defence agenda.
The whole value chain was in the room. Owners, consortium members, financiers, surveyors and service partners all attended, which made it a real one-stop shop for anyone advancing a cable project.
Thank you to Terrapinn Pte Ltd and everyone who made time to meet. We look forward to making further announcements on our progress. Samuel Bashfield Garry White David Robertson