GIFT City aims to emerge as global data gateway with ₹1.3K-cr cable landing station

GUjarat International Finance Tec-City is face of the earth positioned as bharat’s next international digital gateway with the ecesis of an international telegraph landing place Station (CLS), a project aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on Mumbai for global data connectivity while strengthening GIFT City’s financial and technology ecosystem, officials aware of the details said.The project got a major boost with the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Gujarat government, GIFT City and Henox IT & Data Centers Pvt. Ltd, a UAE-backed firm at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.Officials said the cable landing station project involves a potential investment of about ₹1,317 crore and is expected to generate more than 1,300 direct and indirect jobs.The facility will be established at Dhuvaran in Anand district, and will be connected to GIFT City through terrestrial networks, creating a new international data gateway for India. The cable landing station will be linked to global networks through a new subsea route from Fujairah in the UAE to the Gujarat coast.This partnership will create a new, faster Internet route linking India with the Middle East and Europe, as subsea fibre optic cables are the quickest way to connect different parts of the world and carry the bulk of global Internet traffic, according to a GIFT City official.“This development is a cornerstone in solidifying GIFT City’s role as a major global financial and technology hub. This project is set to deliver strategic advantages to businesses across the financial and digital sectors, including stock exchanges, brokers, and their supporting ecosystem, as well as Global Capability Centers (GCCs) and data centres. This will be achieved by enabling direct peering and significantly reducing latency when connecting with vital international financial destinations such as Dubai, Singapore, and London,” the official said.A CLS is a physical facility that serves as a landing point for submarine cables connecting continents and countries. These cables, made of fiber-optic strands, carry massive amounts of data between countries, and the CLS provides the infrastructure required to connect these cables to land-based networks.A government official close to the development said India’s international connectivity is heavily concentrated in Mumbai, where a large number of submarine cables land in close proximity. Overcrowding, port-related disruptions and limited physical separation between cables increase the risk of simultaneous failures.“In 2024 alone, at least three major international connectivity outages affected Mumbai routes… Some outages were linked to physical damage and regional conflict in the Red Sea, and in several cases restoration timelines were not committed,” the government official said on anonymity.The presence of a local CLS in GIFT City will serve as a magnet for data centres and AI-driven technology enterprises, similar to the development observed in Navi Mumbai, the second official said, adding that it will position GIFT City as a preferred destination for digital infrastructure investments. “Availability of robust international connectivity through CLS is a key factor in attracting hyperscale cloud providers such as Google, Microsoft and Meta, and bringing supporting ecosystems,” he added.A second GIFT City official said the Dhuvaran cable landing station will serve as an alternative western gateway through a new subsea cable route from Fujairah in the UAE to the Gujarat coast. “Gujarat’s geographic location allows nearly 60% of India’s internet traffic to potentially be routed through a GIFT City-linked landing station, easing pressure on Mumbai and strengthening national-level redundancy and cyber resilience,” the official said.He added that the CLS project in Gujarat will be a new destination for international connectivity for the entire Western, North and Central India.For GIFT City, officials described the project as core digital infrastructure. The country’s only International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at GIFT City hosts stock exchanges, bullion exchanges, banks, insurers, asset managers, fintech firms and Global Capability Centres (GCC) that require ultra-low latency, high-capacity and secure international connectivity. Direct access to submarine cables is expected to support real-time trading, cross-border clearing and settlement, overseas listings and technology-driven financial platforms linked to global business centres.The country’s first large-scale commercial semiconductor fab at Dholera is being set up by Tata Electronics in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation for a proposed investment of about ₹91,000 crore.While semiconductor manufacturing is planned at Dholera, backend design, simulation and research operations are expected to operate from GIFT City, supported by high-throughput data links for chip design and cross-border collaboration, according to the official.