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 GMT
London, 27 - 28 May 2026
Schedule
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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
Title Partner Keynote Address: Ciena
Keynote address from a senior speaker from Ciena
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.
News in Brief: EllaLink
News in Brief: Medusa
News in Brief: Arctic Way
News in Brief: Atlantic CAM & Azores Submarine Cable Ring
News in Brief: Update from IslaLink
News in Brief: Update from HaDEA
Update from a senior speaker from the Health and Digital European Agency (HaDEA)
News in Brief: Update from Digital Realty
Update from senior speaker at 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, 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.
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
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
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
Delivering Petabit Capacity Connectivity
Presentation from a senior speaker from HMN Tech.
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?
Fibre sensing: How is the technology evolving?
People & skills: Investing in the industry’s future
Strategies for establishing successful frameworks for intelligence sharing
- How to ensure successful collaboration between governments and industry?
- What legal and procedural frameworks need to be implemented to allow for data sharing?
- Understanding the importance of secure and timely intelligence as a key component for both deterrence and response
- Leveraging data insights to inform national resilience strategies
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
Title Partner presentation: Ciena
Presentation from a senior speaker from Ciena.
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.
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
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?
From defence to deterrence: The role of the military in ensuring subsea resilience
Leveraging AI to optimise network security
- Could AI play a role in strengthening network security through predictive analytics?
- Successes, learnings and lessons from early adopters
Networking break
Head to the Exhibition Hall for the chance to network with 1,500 senior-level attendees from the global submarine cable industry.
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
Address from a representative of Submarine Network EMEA's official charity partner, 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.
News in brief: Trans-Caspian
News in Brief: PACS
News in Brief: Connecting East to West
News in Brief: EAGLE
News in Brief: Update from MEO
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?
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
Safeguarding subsea infrastructure: The evolving legal and policy landscape
- The creation and designation of Cable Protection Zones (CPZ)
- Are existing laws and regulations being effectively enforced?
- Is there a need for further evolution of legal frameworks to protect subsea infrastructure?
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?
Collaboration across borders: How does the global industry protect submarine cables?
- Insights from industry bodies and global cable protection committees
- Strategies for successfully working across the private and public sectors to ensure the best outcomes for subsea cable protection
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
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