Cerberus backs Datawave’s Singapore–India–Gulf subsea cable with majority investment

Datawave Networks Ltd has secured a majority investment and project financing from affiliates of Cerberus Capital Management L.P. to advance the Singapore–India–Gulf (SING) subsea cable system, a high-capacity, low-latency fibre network set to connect critical digital hubs across the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The deal positions the SING project as a future intercontinental backbone for hyperscale connectivity amid exponential AI and cloud data demands, with Ready-for-Service (RFS) targeted for 2030.

Why is Cerberus investing in a subsea cable spanning Singapore, India, and the Gulf in 2026?

Cerberus Capital Management’s commitment to fund and take majority control of Datawave’s SING subsea cable project marks a strategic bet on the next phase of east–west digital trade infrastructure. The Singapore–India–Gulf route is rapidly becoming a critical node in the global internet architecture, not only because of the sheer volume of data but due to shifting geopolitical and latency considerations.

The 16-fiber-pair system will land in Singapore, Kedah (Malaysia), Chennai and Mumbai (India), Kalba (UAE), and Muscat (Oman), effectively stitching together fast-growing hyperscale hubs and creating an alternate digital corridor to traditional Red Sea and Suez routes that have become chokepoints. The minimum 18 Tbps per pair specification reflects hyperscaler-grade design ambitions. With expected onward connectivity into Europe via Oman and the UAE, the SING system is implicitly aiming to rival and complement existing cables like SEA-ME-WE 6 and Blue-Raman, while de-risking future congestion.

Cerberus’s entry at this stage enables Datawave to push into execution mode after years of foundational groundwork. This includes securing International Long Distance (ILD) licensing in India, landing party arrangements across host geographies, and confirming anchor customer interest. For private capital, this is more than project finance—it is an infrastructure sovereignty play.

How does the SING cable system stack up against other regional subsea infrastructure initiatives?

SING’s proposed 2030 Ready-for-Service timeline places it in the same decade as other ambitious hyperscale-centric builds in the region, including Google’s Echo and Bifrost projects, the IAX/IOX cable systems led by Reliance Jio, and SEA-H2X. However, the differentiator lies in its tight triangulation of three high-growth demand zones—India’s digital core, the Gulf’s data center rise, and Singapore’s entrenched hyperscale cloud hub.

Where legacy cables often prioritized lowest latency across long distances, newer builds like SING are optimized for volume, scale, and AI-oriented resilience. By directly interlinking India’s western and eastern shores (Mumbai and Chennai) with both Gulf and Southeast Asian nodes, SING opens flexible routing options that are particularly relevant for data replication and regional failover strategies in AI, fintech, and defense workloads.

Moreover, while SEA-ME-WE routes often concentrate multiple landing points in politically sensitive or disaster-prone chokepoints, SING’s architecture appears designed for route diversity and uptime resilience—qualities institutional buyers increasingly prioritize.

What does this investment reveal about changing capital flows in digital infrastructure?

Cerberus Capital Management’s decision to lead this investment signals growing institutional appetite for diversified exposure to digital infrastructure beyond North America and Western Europe. While fibre routes and tower assets in mature markets are increasingly yield-driven, emerging corridor plays like SING offer higher return potential alongside execution risk.

By controlling both equity and debt participation, Cerberus structurally derisks its exposure while enabling tight alignment on milestone delivery. This is in line with a broader shift where financial sponsors are not merely backing infrastructure but shaping its strategic layout—whether in green data centers, space–terrestrial hybrid networks, or subsea builds.

The move also reflects how private equity funds with hybrid real estate, credit, and operational capabilities are now comfortable underwriting long-cycle infrastructure bets that used to be exclusive to sovereign wealth funds or development finance institutions. In Datawave’s case, the combination of regulatory readiness, regional licensing, and pre-secured landing stations likely tipped the balance in its favor.

What are the execution risks as Datawave moves into full deployment mode?

The biggest operational risk for the SING system will be timeline adherence—particularly as the project moves from financing and supplier alignment into marine survey, permitting, and physical cable laying. With a 2030 RFS target, execution delays in geopolitical hotspots or through maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and Malacca could alter budget and customer confidence.

Vendor alignment is underway, with Datawave confirming a deal with a major U.S.-based subsea system supplier. While the name was undisclosed, the shortlist is likely to include players such as SubCom, TE SubCom, or ASN (Alcatel Submarine Networks), all of whom have experience with multi-country hyperscale builds.

The capital cost of such systems can run into hundreds of millions of dollars, and the structure of Cerberus’s financing—how much is upfront equity versus milestone-linked project debt—will shape risk-sharing. Another material variable is anchor customer conversion. Though “commitments” have been mentioned, landing long-term IRUs (Indefeasible Rights of Use) with cloud majors, telcos, and sovereign data players is crucial for margin resilience and post-RFS refinancing optionality.

How does this reshape competitive positioning across subsea infrastructure providers?

For Datawave, the Cerberus deal elevates it from a regional player to a credible contender in the fast-digitizing Middle East–Asia corridor. It places pressure on incumbents and hyperscale-aligned players like Google, Meta, and Amazon Web Services who are either co-building or leasing capacity on rival systems.

It also tightens the bandwidth race between Southeast Asia and the Gulf, where sovereigns like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are aggressively building digital free zones, AI training hubs, and cloud availability zones. These ambitions will be bottlenecked without dependable eastward throughput—especially as Gulf countries seek digital partnerships beyond U.S.-centric cloud monopolies.

Rival firms such as Aqua Comms, Omantel, and Reliance Jio’s Jio Infocomm USA unit may face stiffer pricing competition if SING delivers on both speed and scale. Yet collaboration remains on the table: future consortium routes may absorb or extend into SING via branching units or interconnects.

What comes next if Datawave successfully executes the SING deployment?

If SING comes online by 2030 with minimal slippage, it could become a critical component of the global AI and cloud backbone. It would serve as a resilient high-bandwidth bridge for multinational enterprises, sovereign cloud operators, and AI compute clusters operating in regulatory-sensitive geographies.

For Cerberus, a successful execution creates optionality: hold for yield and cash flows, list as a digital infrastructure REIT-style asset, or flip to strategic buyers like infrastructure funds, telcos, or sovereign funds seeking network control.

For regional stakeholders, particularly India and the Gulf states, SING’s deployment would offer more than capacity—it delivers digital autonomy. The ability to route around chokepoints, diversify latency paths, and build AI-native interconnectivity could unlock the next wave of cloud repatriation, financial digitization, and cross-border data trade.

Key takeaways on what the SING cable system and Cerberus investment mean for digital infrastructure

What executives need to know now:

• Datawave has secured majority investment and project financing from Cerberus Capital Management to build the Singapore–India–Gulf (SING) subsea cable.

• SING is designed as a high-capacity (16 fiber pairs, 18 Tbps minimum per pair) system spanning Singapore, Malaysia, India, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.

• The system is targeting a 2030 Ready-for-Service date and aims to support AI, cloud, and hyperscale data center interconnectivity.

• The deal gives Cerberus both equity control and structured exposure to long-cycle digital infrastructure in a rising east–west corridor.

• Anchor customer commitments have reportedly been secured, reducing market adoption risk once deployed.

• The SING route offers geopolitical and route redundancy advantages over traditional Red Sea and Suez-linked systems.

• Execution risks include marine permitting, cable laying delays, and securing full IRU conversions for long-term revenue assurance.

• Datawave’s regulatory licenses in India and Singapore signal project readiness and de-risk landing permissions.

• This move intensifies regional competition among subsea players targeting Gulf–Asia traffic and AI data replication flows.

• Successful completion could trigger secondary builds, sovereign alignment, or M&A interest in east–west digital corridor infrastructure.