New undersea cable cutter risks Internet's backbone
Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/china-tests-an-undersea-cable-cutter-as-suspected-sabotage-incidents-grow/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47797428 Points: 1 # Comments: 0
Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/china-tests-an-undersea-cable-cutter-as-suspected-sabotage-incidents-grow/
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47797428
China cable-cutter demo coincides with more sabotage of subsea Internet cables.
A Chinese ship has tested a new device capable of slicing through submarine data cables thousands of meters beneath the ocean surface. That demonstration may exacerbate security concerns over a spate of suspected sabotage incidents targeting undersea communications and power cables from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The trial took place at a depth of 11,483 feet (3,500 meters) during a deep-sea science expedition involving the Chinese research ship named Haiyang Dizhi 2, according to the South China Morning Post . That ship is equipped with a 150-ton crane, a 10-kilometer fiber optic winch, and a helicopter landing platform. It has shown the capability to deploy deep-sea remotely operated vehicles in previous missions .
The South China Morning Post cited a report in the China Science Daily, an official, Chinese-language news publication run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The latter claimed that “the sea trial has bridged the ‘last mile’ from deep-sea equipment development to engineering application.”
This is the latest of multiple dual-use technologies for cutting undersea cables developed by Chinese military and civilian organizations over the years. Previous examples include People’s Liberation Army naval organizations filing patents for cable-cutting and retrieval tools, as well as Lishui University filing a patent for a cable-cutting device that could be towed behind a vessel for emergency use, according to the Jamestown Foundation think tank based in Washington, DC. Such technology also debuts at a time when a growing number of Chinese-registered ships have been involved in damaging subsea data cables and even pipelines across the world.
The cable-cutting technology is reportedly designed to cut subsea cables at maximum depths of 13,123 feet (4,000 meters). Its design was first published in the Chinese-language journal Mechanical Engineer in 2025 and attributed to researchers at the China Ship Scientific Research Center and the State Key Laboratory of Deep-sea Manned Vehicles.