Technology
A Giant Cable Exposes Ireland's AI Ambitions and Security Risks
Key Points
A Giant Cable Exposes Ireland's AI Ambitions and Security Risks A new Amazon transatlantic fiber-optic link is symbolic of the country’s tech economy, but also of its chronic lack of defense spending. On the southwest coast of County Cork, where the lush green landscape gives way to the paler green of the Atlantic Ocean, Ireland is about to make its mark in the tech world again. A subsea cable is due to make landfall here, a high-capacity fiber-optic link designed to handle artificial...
A Giant Cable Exposes Ireland's AI Ambitions and Security Risks
A new Amazon transatlantic fiber-optic link is symbolic of the country’s tech economy, but also of its chronic lack of defense spending.
On the southwest coast of County Cork, where the lush green landscape gives way to the paler green of the Atlantic Ocean, Ireland is about to make its mark in the tech world again. A subsea cable is due to make landfall here, a high-capacity fiber-optic link designed to handle artificial intelligence loads for Amazon Web Services customers across Europe.
But as well as showing off Ireland’s economic strength, the Fastnet transatlantic cable is just the latest example to show up the country’s defensive weaknesses. In an uncertain world, it’s the kind of project that raises an uncomfortable question for the government 250 kilometers away in Dublin: How to protect it.