US Backs Feasibility Study for India-Singapore Cable

USTDA funds a feasibility study for SCNX3, a $350M subsea cable linking India and Singapore for 1.85 billion users

23 Mar 2026

Washington backs new subsea cable between India and Singapore

The US Trade and Development Agency has signed a grant agreement with SubConnex, a Malaysia-based cable developer, to fund a feasibility study for the SCNX3 submarine cable system, bringing the project a step closer to construction.

The agreement was signed in January 2026 at the Pacific Telecommunications Council conference in Honolulu. Florida-based APTelecom was appointed to lead the technical and commercial assessment.

SCNX3 would link Chennai with Singapore, with potential additional landings in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. The first phase carries an estimated price tag of $350mn, while a broader network vision stretching 22,000 kilometres could cost up to $1bn. The system is targeting a ready-for-service date of 2028 to 2029, pending financing and regulatory clearance across five jurisdictions.

Thomas Hardy, USTDA's deputy director, said deploying secure, US-made cable technology was essential to protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattack and foreign interference. The agency has framed SCNX3 as a strategic asset for Indo-Pacific digital infrastructure.

The corridor the cable would serve is home to roughly 1.85 billion people. Route diversity and network resilience along this stretch have long concerned telecoms planners, given how heavily trafficked it already is.

SubConnex chief executive Simon Zettl said the India-Singapore corridor had the commercial capacity to support multiple additional cable systems. Growing repair times and constrained marine fleet availability, he added, made new routes a strategic necessity.

APTelecom's study will cover route engineering, financial modelling, commercialisation planning, and a regulatory pathway analysis.

Significant private capital is still required before the project reaches financial close. Whether USTDA's early backing is enough to unlock that investment will depend in part on how quickly demand signals from cloud and AI operators in the region translate into commercial commitments.