Cable wars? Mapping the political economy of submarine cables in an era of geoeconomic competition

Submarine cables are the indispensable yet often overlooked global infrastructure of our digital age. While geoeconomic competition over cables has increased, its political-economic context, where private corporations dominate nearly every aspect of the network, remains poorly understood. This article examines how geoeconomic competition unfolds within the submarine cable network. We provide a comprehensive mapping of the patterns of ownership and supply of submarine cables, based on a novel open-access dataset. We find that network expansion remains largely driven by corporate interests. US hyperscalers like Google play an increasingly prominent role in high-capacity connections, although telecom carriers retain an important position in the network. US and Chinese interventions have significant, but fragmented effects. They are particularly pronounced in the oligopolistic supply sector, where corporate and state interests align more strongly. We conclude that, against the assumption of purported ‘cable wars’, commercial interests represent structural barriers to states’ instrumentalization of this network.