📝If Meta and Google are investing massively in submarine telecommunications cables, it is not for the false good reason you imagine

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► Full Reference: O. Chatain, « Si Meta et Google investissent massivement dans les câbles de télécommunication sous-marins, ce n’est pas pour la fausse bonne raison que vous imaginez » (If Meta and Google are investing massively in submarine telecommunications cables, it is not for the false good reason you imagine), The Conversation France, 30 September 2026.

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🌐 read the article on The Conversation (open access)

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► Summary of the article: Olivier Chatain, Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris, shows that we are mistaken about the reason why Google and Meta invest so massively in submarine cables: it is not the ordinary diversification of a “big consumer” of bandwidth, but the theory of the firm, according to which a firm integrates what constitutes a specific investment.

Google and Meta alone finance 23% of the submarine bandwidth installed in 2020-2025 and 32% of ongoing projects. Their model — a real-time personalised feed and a global self-service advertising platform — requires controlled latency and flawless resilience. Their new routes, such as Meta’s Waterworth project (50,000 km), bypass the chokepoints: Suez, the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb, Hormuz, Malacca, Taiwan.

The result is a privatisation and concentration of resilience, which creates a new dependency and raises the question of a “resilience market”, at a time when digital infrastructures are weaponised. It is thus crucial operators that carry, through their private investments, the infrastructure of the system: the issue falls within Regulation Law and Compliance Law.

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read the presentation of the book Le système juridique global des noms de domaine. Structure multi-acteurs et durabilité de l’Internet (The Global Legal System of Domain Names. Multi-Stakeholder Structure and Sustainability of the Internet)