Meta’s Africa2 undersea cable project, which was meant to connect African coastal states to Europe and Asia, is facing a major roadblock due to the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict. According to Bloomberg, Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the company contracted to lay the fiber-optic cables for the project, declared force majeure, saying that it can no longer safely operate in the Persian Gulf.
While Meta announced the completion of the core of the project, it’s still working on the Pearls section of the network, which was intended to connect Persian Gulf states, including Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman, as well as Pakistan and India, to the rest of Africa and several European countries. The publication says that the bulk of the undersea cable has already been laid but is yet to be connected to the onshore landing stations.
This isn’t the first time that the Africa2 project has experienced disruption. Late last year, the project’s Red Sea section was delayed due to Houthi strikes in the area, alongside permitting issues. Because conflicts increase the danger to life and property, there are fewer operators willing to operate in such theaters, and those that do often charge a heavy premium to account for the higher risk and more expensive insurance costs. Aside from that, it also increases the chance that existing undersea cables will get damaged, and that military action in the area will cause repairs to be delayed for several months.
Article continues belowThe Pearls extension is considered to be a good substitute for the Red Sea corridor, which has been experiencing instability due to attacks from Houthi rebels from Yemen. In fact, the section is scheduled to go online this year, until the U.S.-Israel military action against Iran derailed Meta’s plans. The Africa2 undersea cable project isn’t the only tech infrastructure that has been affected by the 2026 Iran war — we’ve already seen several Amazon Web Services data centers deliberately hit by Iranian drone attacks, and the country has also threatened several tech firms based in the Middle East. We’ve also seen Stryker, a major American medical technology company, hit by a cyberattack that resulted in the disruption of its global operations.
Aside from the trouble in the Middle East, undersea cables in Europe and East Asia are constantly under threat from being cut by ships that are part of “shadow fleets” — vessels with murky ownerships but often indirectly controlled by states like Russia and China conducting hybrid warfare. Because of this, Meta has been planning to build a 50,000-km (30,000-mile) long undersea cable that will bypass current geopolitical hotspots called Project Waterworth. But despite being announced for 2025, it’s expected that it will take several more years before it is completed and goes online.
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