Who Owns the Ocean Floor Now?

Italian cable giant Prysmian nears hyperscaler supply deals and a €4B acquisition as AI drives record subsea investment

1 Jun 2026

Prysmian is pursuing long-term supply agreements with major hyperscalers and an acquisition in the €4 billion enterprise value range, the Italian cable manufacturer confirmed on 5 May. Chief executive Massimo Battaini told Bloomberg the supply deals would lift optical cable production capacity by 40 to 50 per cent, require more than $1.2bn in capital over three years, and generate revenues projected above $5bn. Its stock reached a record high following the announcement.

Both moves reflect a tightening in cable manufacturing capacity. TeleGeography projects more than $16bn in new submarine cable systems entering service between 2026 and 2029, an investment pace unseen for over 20 years.

On the supply side, the Italian group occupies one corner of a three-way Western subsea manufacturing market alongside SubCom and Alcatel Submarine Networks. With that group operating near full capacity, cloud and AI platform operators including Google, Meta, and Amazon have moved beyond buying bandwidth on shared cables. They now fund, co-design, and in some cases own transoceanic fibre routes outright. Colt Technology Services has described transatlantic connectivity as facing "hot demand," with US-to-Asia deployments expected to intensify sharply over the next 12 to 18 months.

Critics argue the arrangement poses a structural risk. Binding supply agreements between a small manufacturing cluster and the world's largest technology companies may push telecoms operators and national broadband programmes to the back of production queues. The US Strategic Subsea Cables Act of 2026 and the European Commission's €347m cable security programme appear aimed at that concern.

Neither negotiating counterparts nor acquisition targets have been named. What the announcements confirm is a broader shift in the industry's role: cable manufacturers are becoming embedded infrastructure partners in the planning cycles of the most powerful technology operators on earth, a notable change for a sector long defined by quiet undersea engineering.