The company is laying internet cables on the ocean floor to boost Washington’s economic and military power, including a clandestine mission to a naval base on a remote island, Reuters reported on Monday.
On February 10 of last year, the CS Dependable cable ship washed up off the coast of Diego Garcia Island, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that is home to a discreet US naval base.
Over the next month, the crew of the CS Dependable covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation codenamed “Big Wave,” according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.
The previously unreported new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia will boost US military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the past decade.
CS Dependable is owned by SubCom, a small-town New Jersey cable manufacturer that is playing a major role in a race between the United States and China to control advanced military and digital technologies, which could decide which country emerges as the world’s preeminent superpower.
Publicly, SubCom is one of the world’s largest developers of submarine fiber optic cables for telecommunications companies and tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Meta Platforms.
Behind the scenes, it is the exclusive undersea cable contractor for the US military, laying a network of surveillance and Internet cables on the ocean floor, according to the four people with knowledge of the matter: two SubCom employees and two staff members. US Navy
The people asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the operations.
This dual role has made SubCom increasingly
Valuable for Washington as global internet infrastructure, from undersea cables to data centers to 5G mobile networks, risks splintering into two systems, one backed by the US and the other controlled by China.
SubCom is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm, which has invested in defense contractors and national security assets.
Last year, Cerberus paid $300 million for a Philippine shipyard at a former US Navy base near the South China Sea, beating out Chinese competitors for control of a strategic site in a region where Beijing has been exerting its military force.
Cerberus is led by Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire political donor, who was recruited by former President Donald Trump to the Intelligence Advisory Board, which advises the commander-in-chief on US foreign intelligence matters.
In light of the Reuters findings, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet confirmed the existence of a new high-speed submarine internet cable to Diego Garcia. It was the first official recognition of that cable.
“The resiliency, redundancy and security of our communications infrastructure represent a top priority for the US Pacific Fleet,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The statement said the Navy could not discuss details for operational security reasons. The Navy did not respond to Reuters questions about SubCom, nor did it name the company in its statement.
SubCom’s journey from Cold War experiment to global cable builder and now shadow player in the US-China tech war is detailed in this story for the first time.
Submarine cables carry 99% of all transcontinental Internet traffic, including instant messaging chats, stock transactions, and military secrets.
This underwater network has become one of the key weapons in the technological war between the United States and China, as detailed in a Reuters investigation published in March.
Undersea cables are vulnerable to sabotage and espionage, and Beijing and Washington have accused each other of tapping the cables to spy on data or carry out cyberattacks.
The growing importance of SubCom to the United States can be divided into two categories, one military and one economic, according to two undersea cable industry officials who have worked on US government projects.
