European companies, research institutes, and Greenlandic operators are advancing plans for a pan-Arctic undersea cable, backed in part by the European Union. The project could eventually extend through Canada to Japan and South Korea, but construction and maintenance in the Arctic Ocean would require more European icebreakers and face significant technical and geopolitical challenges. The effort reflects a broader shift in the submarine-cable industry, where international security concerns now increasingly influence infrastructure decisions.
New cable ambitions
The pan-Arctic cable project took shape in 2025, when European companies and research institutes joined Greenlandic operators to sign an agreement to develop it, according to the submarine cable network.
Since then, the project has received support from the European Union through the Connecting Europe Facility Digital program. In a new policy paper on Europe’s Arctic Strategy, the European Commission said the EU has already invested $119 million (€107 million) to “promote the secure and sovereign connectivity of Greenland,” alongside funding for a pan-Arctic cable project.
The longer-term goal of extending the undersea cable to Japan and South Korea through Canada faces considerable obstacles. Among them is the need for more European icebreakers capable of supporting cable installation and maintenance in the icy Arctic Ocean. Several pan-Arctic cable projects have been proposed in the past, and some remain under development.
One earlier proposal, the Arctic Connect Submarine Cable, would have linked Europe and Asia along the Northern Sea Route, which runs beside Russia’s Arctic coastline. The plan was canceled in May 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine further deepened its isolation from Europe.
The pan-Arctic cable is not the only undersea infrastructure project intended to strengthen Europe’s connections with friendly countries. In September 2026, Norwegian company Bulk Infrastructure Group AS reportedly began seeking a Canadian partner to take majority ownership of a proposed transatlantic cable directly linking Europe and Canada, according to Bloomberg News. The proposed cable is called the Leif Erikson system.
Internet economics gives way to geopolitics
For several decades, “geopolitics played virtually no role in how companies considered where to install their cables and which countries to connect to,” Blau wrote in his book Undersea War.
That approach is changing. Although maximizing data connections and Internet traffic remains important, cable planners must now also consider international relations and the growing risk that adversaries could monitor or sabotage the infrastructure that carries much of the world’s Internet traffic.
Source: arstechnica.com