{"slug": "a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks", "title": "A Giant Cable Exposes Ireland’s AI Ambitions and Security Risks", "summary": "A new subsea cable for Amazon Web Services in County Cork highlights Ireland's AI ambitions but exposes its weak defenses, as the neutral state with minimal military spending struggles to protect critical infrastructure amid Russian aggression and rising security concerns.", "body_md": "(Bloomberg) -- 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.\n\nMost Read from Bloomberg\n\nBut 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.\n\nCountries across Europe are beefing up their militaries and trying to reinforce their seas and airspace in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and a retrenchment by the US. As a neutral state, Ireland is not a NATO member and has traditionally spent a paltry amount on its military capabilities.\n\nWhile it's allocated a record €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) to defense in its current budget, the Atlantic country has no dedicated defense minister, a Naval fleet of just eight patrol vessels and a shortage of crew to operate them, while lacking the capacity to monitor even a fraction of its waters.\n\nThe government published its first national maritime security strategy this year. Yet by dragging its heels on concrete measures to address the challenges presented, politicians are facing increasingly vocal calls to do more to shield the abundance of subsea infrastructure that is both critical to Ireland's international partners and its prosperity.\n\nOne European diplomat said that cooperation with Dublin was good and improving, albeit from a position of Ireland having more limited defense and security capabilities following recognized underinvestment in the last 15 to 20 years. Another was less understanding, saying that their country had basically given up on trying to help Ireland with its defense situation, politically and militarily.\n\n\"The first duty of any neutral sovereign state is to be able to defend itself, and currently we can't,\" said Barry Andrews, a European lawmaker for Ireland's co-ruling Fianna Fail party. He called for a \"much more realistic\" stance from Dublin on the need to change its defense posture in light of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.\n\nIreland is actively seeking to attract subsea cable business, and Fastnet is just one of several planned. Work is expected to start on the landing station for the link from Maryland this year. From the Irish coast it will travel to Amazon's regional headquarters in Cork City to serve AWS cloud and AI customers across Europe from 2028.\n\nElsewhere, the Pisces telecommunications link between Galway and Portugal was announced in March, while the $1.6 billion EU-backed Celtic Interconnector electricity link from Cork to Brittany in France is now under construction. In all, almost three-quarters of the northern hemisphere's undersea telecommunications pass through or close to Irish waters.\n\nThat's leading to some hard questions at home and abroad over Ireland's dependence for security on its EU membership and on the UK, its NATO neighbor.\n\nThose questions are harder to parry as Dublin assumes the EU's six-month rotating presidency on July 1 while having the bloc's lowest defense spend — about 0.2% of gross domestic product compared with some 5% in the Baltic states — while enjoying one of its highest rates of economic growth.\n\nThat situation was put in sharper focus by recent events surrounding the Yantar Russian spy vessel. Britain's then Defense Secretary John Healey said in November it was mapping UK subsea cables and was earlier seen in the Irish Sea. AWS declined to comment when asked what discussions it's had with the Irish government on Fastnet and security.\n\n\"No country in Europe is off Russia's target list,\" the EU's chief foreign envoy, Kaja Kallas, said during a visit to Dublin on June 9, citing hybrid attacks and sabotage against subsea cables. \"Greater investment in maritime capabilities is essential to keep our countries safe.\"\n\nA third European diplomat said their sense was that Ireland had stepped up its defensive preparations for the duration of its EU presidency, when it will host ministerial meetings.\n\nBut the person said that the anticipation was Dublin wouldn't bother as much with highlighting how it is trying to improve security once its time in the chair is over because they expect the conversation to die down when the international spotlight moves on.\n\nIt's a charge rejected by Helen McEntee, who serves concurrently as Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence, and is responsible for the new maritime security strategy.\n\n\"The whole focus of that is to be clear about what's happening in our waters, so in particular monitoring our critical infrastructure under water, but also looking at our overall maritime domain and how we can protect it,\" she said in an interview in Brussels on May 22. \"That means building new partnerships, it means investing in new technologies, it means strengthening our own defense forces.\"\n\nDuring a visit to Cork in March, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ireland's leader, Taoiseach Micheal Martin, announced an updated memorandum of understanding on defense including greater coordination on addressing \"major subsea communication cable incidents.\" Live exercises are due to begin in September.\n\n\"I think it's really important that Ireland, as we chair the presidency, is seen as a country that is taken seriously in this regard,\" McEntee added.\n\nThat may be optimistic when the reality is of Russian shadow fleet vessels present off the west coast and Russian submarines sighted even in the Irish Sea. In one humbling incident, Irish fishermen ended up negotiating directly with the Russian ambassador to try to stop the Russian Navy conducting live fire exercises in Ireland's waters.\n\nGeography has long played more in Ireland's favor, though. In 1858, the world's first transatlantic cable was laid between Newfoundland and Valentia Island in County Kerry, close to Ireland's westernmost point. It carried messages by telegraph that would previously have taken two weeks by sea to arrive.\n\nIt wasn't long before cables were being tampered with, though. At the onset of World War I in 1914, British forces cut German cables, forcing traffic onto British-controlled networks, according to the International Cable Protection Committee, which comprises commercial operators, ship owners and governments. Then, in 1917-18, German submarines cut multiple cables, including those linking Britain, the US and Portugal.\n\nCables today are more resilient, with tech companies better prepared for repair and maintenance, as well as route diversity. Governments, too, are now focused on readiness to respond to incidents, with a widespread recognition of the changed geopolitical situation. The complaint heard from Ireland's European partners is that it's moving too slowly.\n\n\"The Irish security mindset hasn't really caught up with our economic and social prosperity,\" said Eoin McNamara, a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs who has been invited to give lectures to the Irish defense forces on hybrid threats.\n\nThat's despite Ireland hosting the European headquarters of most major US tech giants and their data centers, making digital connections core to its economic prospects.\n\nDescribing Ireland as a data bridge for the EU as a whole, McNamara cautioned against \"alarm\" over subsea cables, saying that while damage happens, traffic can be rerouted.\n\n\"The lesser risk is the severe disruption that could put the economic activity connecting to the multinationals at risk,\" he said. \"The other risk is to Ireland's economic reputation, and this is something the government doesn't want to see unraveled.\"\n\nTravel south from Valentia along the jagged coastline past standing stones, castles, ancient wells and early shrines, and you'll eventually arrive at Owenahincha. That's where the AWS cable is due to come ashore and travel on to a landing station some 6 kilometers away.\n\nThe location gets to the roots of Ireland's current defense dilemma.\n\nThe beach lies within a stone's throw of the birthplace of Michael Collins, an Irish revolutionary leader who was instrumental in the early 20th century struggle for independence from the British. The \"Michael Collins Trail\" leads to a statue and museum to his life in nearby Clonakilty, otherwise best known for its black pudding.\n\nThe Irish Free State declared itself neutral when it was established in 1922 and maintained its neutrality through World War II. The Republic never joined NATO during the Cold War and has since kept military activities to peace-keeping.\n\nIt has a so-called triple lock on deploying more than 12 military personnel overseas, requiring a UN Security Council mandate on top of government and parliamentary approval.\n\nThe Irish Defense Forces are as small as they've ever been. The country has no primary radar system to identify threats, and its ships have no advanced sonar allowing them to see what's going on beneath them.\n\nOne diplomat talked of a core of politicians, officers and officials who recognize the seriousness of the situation. While no one expects Ireland to abandon its neutral status, any discussion of defense is deeply sensitive, they said.\n\n\"Ireland's proud tradition of military neutrality is not in question,\" Kallas said. \"But neutrality does not provide immunity from the threats Europe faces today.\"\n\nThose threats aren't lost on Ireland, said Camino Kavanagh, a subsea infrastructure expert and senior visiting fellow with the department of war studies at King's College London. She said those posed by Russia and others have thrown the industry and politicians closer together on emergency planning.\n\nIreland has identified a need for \"multi-role vessels\" for its future fleet, with the UK keen to sell Dublin two or more of BAE Systems' Clyde-built Type-26 frigates. The French government has been asked to procure a €500 million military radar system for Ireland to fill that capability gap. Dublin is expected to rely on French and British military assets, including naval ships, for security during its EU presidency, theIrish Times reported.\n\n\"Naval expenditure is increasing,\" said Kavanagh. \"It will never be at the level that anybody wants, but it is increasing. Actual purchasing of equipment capabilities is underway,\" she said. \"We are in a moment of transition.\"\n\nIn the meantime, Ireland will have to outsource defense during its EU presidency to other member states, as others including Denmark have previously done. After that, said Andrews, the EU lawmaker, it must update its report on the future of the defense forces to take account of new realities.\n\n\"Interconnectors, gas pipelines, cyberattacks, misinformation — these are the nature of the threats that are out there,\" he said. \"Geographic isolation no longer presents us with the defense we used to have.\"\n\n--With assistance from Suzanne Lynch.\n\nMost Read from Bloomberg Businessweek\n\n©2026 Bloomberg L.P.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks", "canonical_source": "https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/giant-cable-exposes-ireland-ai-040021399.html", "published_at": "2026-07-01 04:00:21+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-01 05:51:41.552860+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Amazon Web Services", "Ireland", "County Cork", "Fastnet", "NATO", "European Union", "Russia", "Barry Andrews"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-giant-cable-exposes-irelands-ai-ambitions-and-security-risks.jsonld"}}