CONFERENCE AGENDA
View the full conference programme for Subsea Security Summit 2026 and the co-located Submarine Networks EMEA 2026
All times are listed in BST
London, 27 - 28 May 2026
Schedule
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Resilient connectivity in a changing world
AI & subsea: How is AI shaping the industry's future?
- Busting the myths: What is the reality of AI for the subsea industry?
- What are the data demands of AI and how does this impact capacity and route planning?
- What is already happening as a result of AI? What is likely to happen in the next 12 months? In the next 5 years?
- AI & the hyperscalers
So, Governments finally noticed our cables. Now what?
How public policy advocacy is becoming a necessity for submarine cable operator.
Keynote address from European Subsea Cables Association (ESCA)
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
Subsea Foundations: Introductory sessions
Introductory sessions for industry newcomers giving a high-level overview of key aspects of the submarine cable market. Please note these sessions will take place in Track Room 2.
- Subsea 101: An intro to the industry - Eduardo Mateo, Executive Committee, SubOptic Association
- Legal & commercial - Denise Wood, Partner & Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig LLP
- Engineering & technical - Elaine Reed, Senior Manager - Submarine Engineering, Vodafone
- Maintenance & repair -Alasdair Wilkie, Chairman, Atlantic Cable Maintenance & Repair Agreement (ACMA)
- Regulatory, policy & permitting -John Wrottesley, Executive Director, ESCA
News in Brief: Medusa
News in Brief: Arctic Way
News in Brief: Evolving Subsea - The reality of building next-generation infrastructure
Update from IOEMA
News in Brief: Atlantic CAM & Azores Submarine Cable Ring
News in Brief: Update from IslaLink
News in Brief: Update from EU CEF-Digital Programme
News in Brief: Update from Digital Realty
Middle East: Strategies for strengthening the region’s digital infrastructure
- How is AI shaping the region’s infrastructure requirements?
- Leveraging the region’s geographic advantage to drive growth and investment
- Developing the connectivity ecosystem: from subsea to data centres and beyond
- Managing regulation and permitting considerations
What’s next for subsea network architectures and design?
- With bandwidth requirements still increasing, how can we increase capacity on subsea cables?
- Is technology development slowing down?
- What role can multi-core fibre, hollow-core fibre and other fibre innovations play in addressing capacity challenges?
- Where are we with the fibre pair count in repeatered systems?
Plug and play, or piece it together? Submarine cable supply contract models
This panel discussion will explore the complexities, advantages, risks, and trade-offs involved in turnkey versus disaggregated approaches to submarine cable contract models. The submarine cable industry is evolving rapidly, with diverse stakeholders navigating critical decisions that impact project timelines, costs, technical performance, and operational flexibility. Panelists representing turnkey integrators, vertically integrated turnkey suppliers, cable system owners, and submarine cable consultants will provide unique perspectives and actionable insights. The session will examine the benefits of streamlined project delivery under turnkey models, including reduced coordination challenges and risk centralization, while contrasting them with the flexibility and potential cost savings of disaggregated approaches that allow system owners to select specialized vendors for specific project components. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors driving decision-making in submarine cable projects and strategies for navigating this dynamic landscape.
Choosing the right technologies to secure, protect and monitor subsea infrastructure?
- What are the benefits and challenges of different approaches?
- Commercial considerations
- Technologies for monitoring the seabed and environment surrounding subsea infrastructure: e.g. seabed sensors, AUVs and ROVs, acoustic and sonar systems
- Technologies within the cable: e.g fibre sensing
- Vessel tracking: e.g. AIS and VMS
Updates from China Mobile International
The Convergence of AI and Distributed Sensing: Building Intelligent Subsea Situational Awareness
Fault lines: Mapping the geopolitical seabed
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
Europe: The evolution of policy and regulation
- Exploring strategic new policy directives at a European and national level
- Considering the impact of policy decisions on the development of subsea infrastructure in the region
- How is digital regulation evolving in response to AI?
- How are cybersecurity and resilience being addressed by European regulation?
Delivering Petabit Capacity Connectivity
Next-Generation Submarine Cable Testing, Characterization, and Maintenance Supporting Lifecycle Protection and Large-Scale Global Deployments
The accelerating deployment of high‑capacity submarine cable systems, driven by hyperscalers and increasing fiber‑pair counts, is fundamentally reshaping how submarine networks must be tested, characterized, and maintained. As cable infrastructures scale globally, traditional testing approaches struggle to provide the visibility required to protect long‑term performance and availability across the full asset lifecycle.
This presentation explores how next‑generation testing, characterization, and monitoring techniques are evolving to support large‑scale submarine cable deployments. It highlights the growing role of advanced optical performance indicators such as G.OSNR and continuous monitoring in reducing commissioning time, improving fault localization, and enabling faster post‑repair validation. Emphasis is placed on proactive monitoring and data‑driven maintenance to detect degradation early, mitigate risk in the most exposed cable segments, and reduce Mean Time to Repair.
Ultimately, the evolution of submarine cable testing and monitoring is becoming a strategic requirement to protect CAPEX investments while significantly lowering long‑term OPEX through improved availability, optimized maintenance, and reduced operational risk at global scale.
Navigating stormy seas: What are the risks to subsea infrastructure and what are the consequences?
- What are the risks relating to subsea cables, from physical threats to cyber risks?
- Differentiating between the physical threats to subsea cables: from accidental damage to sabotage
- Why should subsea cable protection be a national security priority?
- With most cables being privately owned, who is paying to protect cables? Should it be the owners or governments?
- Understanding the economic impact of subsea cable incidents ranulf
Fibre sensing: How is the technology evolving?
People & skills: Investing in the industry’s future
Unlocking the African Gateways
With increasing submarine cable landings in Africa, how do we move forward and build the ecosystem. This presentation gives a view on how to unlock the potential of the African gateway locations.
Cybersecurity: Identifying and managing threats to subsea infrastructure
- Strategies for securing network management systems
- Integrating operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT)
- The importance of ensuring preparedness for cyber risks
Africa: Keeping up with demand in a rapidly developing market
- What are the barriers to infrastructure development in Africa?
- Who’s financing and driving subsea investment in the region?
- Striking a balance between local and global traffic demands
Coherent technology evolution and considerations for submarine networks
How evolution of coherent technology is impacting everything from operations to network security.
Unwelcome Marine Maintenance Regulation: Security, Protectionism, or Both?
Repair and re-deploy: evaluating the pros and cons of extending the lifespan of subsea cables
- Technical strategies for extending a cable’s lifespan beyond 25 years
- How does the cost of repairing and re-using a subsea cable compare to installing a new system?
- Evaluating whether cable redeployment is the right solution for your project
If the industry continues to grow, can the supply side keep up with demand?
- Is the supply side of the industry constrained?
- Are suppliers able to keep up with demand?
- Customer perspective: What impact do manufacturing delays or difficulty in securing slots have on project lead times?
Building cyber resilience in subsea infrastructure: Practical lessons from Trans Americas Fibre System
Subsea cable systems are now critical national and global infrastructure. Yet their cybersecurity programmes often struggle to keep pace with threats such as physical tampering, signal interception, and supply chain vulnerabilities, which are evolving rapidly as regulatory expectations tighten. This session shares practical, field-tested lessons from building a greenfield cybersecurity programme at Trans Americas Fibre System (TAFS), owner of the TAM-1 submarine cable system.
Ferris will walk through the realities of securing complex operational environments, establishing actual security readiness across diverse stakeholders, and embedding NIST-aligned controls into the constraints of cable design, construction, and long-term operations.
The session will also examine how emerging telecom and national security requirements are reshaping subsea security practices, and how operators can adopt a proactive, risk-driven model rather than a compliance-only mindset. Attendees will leave with actionable guidance on:
- Integrating cybersecurity into programme governance and vendor selection
- Designing resilient, segmented architectures for subsea operations
- Coordinating security across marine operations and maintenance lifecycles.
Participants will gain concrete patterns, pitfalls to avoid, and implementation tactics they can adapt to ensure their subsea infrastructure remains secure and resilient.
The evolution of the CLS and the rise of hybrid edge data centres
- How is the traditional CLS being redefined as a hybrid facility, and what are the main engineering challenges in integrating high-density data centre capabilities into existing subsea infrastructure?
- Addressing the challenges of designing high-capacity networks while also meeting the growing need for hyper-local, low-latency distribution at the network edge
- With the lines blurring between subsea operators, DC providers, and hyperscalers, what do the new commercial and operational models look like for shared infrastructure? How can the industry better prepare for convergence?
- How will AI Inference affect edge deployments and what is the impact to the CLS?
- As AI bandwidth demands increase, what action do data centres (specifically hybrid data centres/CLS) need to prepare for?
From defence to deterrence: The role of the military in ensuring subsea resilience
Students & early careers meet up
Hosted by the SubOptic Association, students, graduates and early careers professionals are invited to join us in Room F for pizza and drinks.
This networking event is also open to anyone currently enrolled in the 2026 SubOptic mentorship programme.
Managing Digital Security of Underseas Cables – The EU Regional Cable Hubs
Update from JTF for SMART Cables
- SMART Cable project pipeline: An update on which subsea projects have announced their intent to transition to SMART Cable systems.
- Pathways to implementation: Insights into the projects taking significant early steps toward contract finalisation.
- Technological synergy: A clarification on how SMART Cables and Optical Fibre Sensing complement one another to enhance subsea infrastructure.
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
Keynote address from the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC)
Keynote address from European Commission
Update from ESCA NextGen Subgroup
What will it take to resolve the global maintenance debate?
- What are the main challenges when it comes to subsea maintenance?
- What changes need to be made in order to address these concerns? Who’s responsibility is it?
- What impact do maintenance delays have on network resilience?
- Investing in the future: Where will future investment in vessels come from?
Networking drinks reception
Grab a drink and get networking! Carry on the conversations from earlier in the day in a more relaxed atmosphere.
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Geopolitics and the submarine cable industry
- A growing number of governments now recognise subsea telecommunications cables as critical infrastructure, vital to national security, the economy and the delivery of public services. What should such a qualification mean for public-private cooperation around threat detection and incident response?
- Is intentional damage to subsea cables by States or State-backed actors really increasing as often reported by the media?
- In what way would the response to such threats differ from the kinds of threats the industry traditionally deals with?
- What are the opportunities of current geopolitical developments for the subsea cable industry? Are there evident winners and losers?
- From a corporate strategy perspective, how should the industry be thinking about future geopolitical risks?
Keynote address from SubOptic Association
Keynote address from SubOptic Foundation
Geopolitics, fears and undersea installations
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
Subsea Foundations: Speed networking
Speed networking event for early career professionals to network with senior-level industry executives.
This networking event will be held in Room F.
News in Brief: GreenMed
News in Brief: PACS
News in Brief: Telxius, a trusted landing party
News in Brief: Update from Colt Technology Services
News in Brief: Connecting East to West
News in Brief: EAGLE
News in Brief: The Porto CLS+DC - Shaping the Next Atlantic Gateway
News in Brief: Update from the European Commission
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
The evolution of subsea ownership models
- What is the role of the traditional telco in a sector that’s largely driven by the hyperscalers?
- Do new projects need the backing of hyperscalers to succeed?
- Private vs. consortium: What do future ownership models look like?
From monitoring to prevention: How data fusion combined with behavioural analytics is redefining cable protection
AIS and cable sensing technologies are key components of vessel identification and tracking, but not sufficient to predict risk early and mitigate that risk before a cable is damaged.
Anchor dragging, fishing nets and "unknown causes" account for around 70% of reported cable damages, while identity manipulation, AIS gaps, and opaque ownership structures feature regularly in incidents from the Baltic to the Taiwan Strait. With median repair times now exceeding 40 days, the industry can no longer afford to treat cable protection as a reactive discipline.
The question facing cable operators, governments, and hyperscalers alike is “How do we move from monitoring what’s happening to preventing what’s coming? And critically, how do we move from rules-based alerting to behavioural analytics that can model intent, not just position?
When have states attacked cables?
Strategies for enhancing the physical security of network infrastructure
- What measures should be considered for improving the physical security of infrastructure?
- What infrastructure needs to be considered, from the subsea cable to the cable landing station to the data centre and beyond?
- Whose responsibility is it to ensure the physical protection of infrastructure assets?
Finance & investment
- Will the advent of more private equity funding change the way the industry operates?
- The investor’s perspective: Why invest in the subsea sector?
- Financing beyond the cable: investment opportunities in derivative industries, e.g. vessels, survey, cable manufacturers
Sustainability
- Progress report: Where are we now?
- Best practices for climate sustainability
- What further actions are needed to ensure real and quantifiable progress?
Ensuring route diversity is more important than ever: What are the key considerations?
- Re-routing traffic in the face of disruption: how are cable cuts and geopolitics impacting traffic flow?
- Will there be a move from more national governments to invest directly in subsea cables to ensure the security of their national infrastructure?
- The customer’s perspective: What does diversity look like if you don’t own your own infrastructure?
Building the Arctic network: A technical and commercial perspective
- Addressing the technical hurdles of deploying networks in challenging Arctic environments
- Evaluating the business case for Arctic routes
- Exploring the regulatory and permitting considerations which are unique to the region
Marine spatial planning: Collaboration between marine sectors
- Sharing the seabed: a collaborative approach to marine spatial planning
- Co-existence with other marine sectors including ports, renewables, oil & gas
- Understanding the complexities of environmental regulation: balancing and ensuring the sustainable development of the marine
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