Red Sea Crisis Halts Major Fiber Projects: Meta’s 2Africa & Google’s Blue-Raman Delayed

According to Bloomberg, two long-planned, high-priority subsea cable projects backed by Meta and Google are facing delays due to escalating tensions in the Red Sea region. A Meta spokesperson attributed the setbacks to a combination of operational challenges, regulatory hurdles and geopolitical risk. The core of the problem lies in the southern Red Sea, where construction teams have reportedly encountered repeated missile attacks launched by Houthi militants, forcing crews to halt work or reroute planned segments.

Meta’s 2Africa cable system, announced in 2020, is a 28,000-mile project designed to encircle the African continent and link Africa with Europe and Asia, but an entire section remains unfinished amid conflict and permit difficulties. Google’s Blue-Raman intercontinental cable system, announced in 2021 and originally slated to go live in 2024, has not yet provided an updated deployment timeline. The report notes that the Red Sea crisis is not expected to affect two other major Google/Meta cabling initiatives previously announced.