The roundtable organized by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), together with the Permanent Mission of Ireland will bring together a host of stakeholders to present the recent UNIDIR report and discuss the findings and recommendations of an in-depth report titled "Achieving Depth: Subsea Cables as Critical Infrastructure" on the margins of the organizational session of the UN Global Mechanism on developments in the field of information and communication technologies.
Today, submarine fibre-optic telecommunications cable systems are the backbone of our data and communications infrastructure, essential to the general functioning and integrity of the internet and the broader information and communications technology (ICT) ecosystem. While satellites and the new constellations in low Earth orbit are breaking ground, especially in terms of lowering costs and accessibility, they are still no match to the high capacity and low latency that today's subsea cable systems provide. As more countries are connected, the security and resilience of the infrastructure becomes ever more critical.
