China's subsea strategy and a new data center for Singapore

Hi everyone, this is Lauly from Taipei.

I'm stuck in a cafe in downtown Taipei after an industry luncheon due to an afternoon thunderstorm. But my mind is at ease knowing that a crazily busy month, which has included the arrival of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a major trade show and a rush of tech industry annual general meetings, is finally coming to an end.

Most important of all, the latest Big Story on China's subsea cable ambitions, written with my colleagues Annie Cheng Ting-Fang, Tsubasa Suruga and Shunsuke Tabeta, is now online.

It all began with a random conversation between Annie, me and an executive from FiberHome, a blacklisted Chinese telecom equipment company, on the sidelines of an industry event. We were surprised by the executive's openness about his company's role in extending China's Belt and Road Initiative from land to the sea, and his comment that FiberHome "doesn't care about the U.S. blacklisting."

We spent months digging into the global subsea cable industry to find out whether the executive was just bluffing. What we found is that China really has built a self-sufficient subsea cable industry, from tiny components to massive cable-laying vessels. After combing through more than a decade of data covering over 80 cables, I could feel my nearsightedness getting worse.

Our designers, editors and us reporters put a lot of effort into telling this visually rich story. I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Meanwhile, at the industry luncheon I just attended, I heard for the second time this week suppliers talking about their expansion in Southeast Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

An executive from a supplier that specializes in building semiconductor and contract manufacturing facilities told me