Broadband India Forum (BIF) hosted its first-ever Convergent Conference on Subsea Cables and Digital Cloud Infrastructure under the theme “Connecting Continents, Scaling Digital Cloud". The event brought together senior government officials, regulators from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), along with global industry leaders including Google, Meta, NEC, Ciena, and Tata Communications.
BIF organises 1st convergent conference on digital infrastructure'
The conference primarily focused on strengthening India’s global connectivity and establishing a robust digital backbone to support India's expanding digital economy.
Subsea cables and cloud are now interdependent
TRAI Chairman A.K. Lahoti emphasised that subsea cables and digital cloud infrastructure are no longer parallel systems, but they are “interdependent engines of growth".
He highlighted that the subsea cables carry nearly 95 per cent of global data traffic, making them critical for the ambitions of India as the broadband subscribers cross the one-billion mark.
India currently has 268 Tbps of activated subsea capacity, with infrastructure projected to grow steadily. The government has also granted cable landing stations the status of “critical telecom infrastructure", underlining their strategic importance.
Budget push and policy support
Everyone at the table was focused on the big number from the Union Budget 2026 to 2027 at Rs 12.21 lakh crore earmarked just for infrastructure. And this is not all – the budget will roll out fresh, long-term tax breaks for global cloud companies which are running their operations on Indian soil.
With this, it is clear that India wants to be the go-to spot for digital and AI investments.
Officials from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) further pointed out something interesting. They said that the modern AI data centres are not just about local servers anymore – rather, they need massive, fast connections that only undersea cables can really provide.
India is part of the International Cable Protection Committee, which shows how serious it is about keeping those subsea networks strong and reliable.
India’s growing data centre and AI ambitions
India’s digital economy is growing faster than ever, and this means a huge appetite for data centres – handling everything from AI to finance to the cloud. And yes, these centres are popping up fast.
But the conference did not just celebrate the growth. Speakers kept circling back to what is actually needed – like more routes for data, local teams who can fix problems on the spot, and smart policies that tie everything together so the infrastructure does not fall behind.
When we speak of the industry leaders, they are pretty blunt. If India really wants to lead in global digital networks, government and business need to work together – by speeding up investment and making sure that India’s digital backbone stays strong for the coming years, for a better than ever connected ecosystem.