My interest in the subsea domain is grounded in a clear strategic reality: the underwater battlespace has become one of the most critical environments for the United Kingdom and indeed the world. In the UK, the government's strong demand for increased capability reflects how rapidly this domain is evolving as a contested, congested, and highly complex environment underpinning modern life.
More than 95% of global internet traffic travels through undersea telecommunications cables. Many digital interactions – from financial transactions to government communications - depend on these networks lying quietly on the seabed. For the UK, our reliance goes even further. As an island nation, we depend heavily on subsea power, oil, and gas infrastructure. Quite literally, the cables under the sea keep the country moving.
Learn more about how we secure the underwater domain
The threat landscape surrounding these assets is broad and increasingly sophisticated. It spans accidental damage, environmental hazards, criminal activity, grey-zone interference, and hostile state operations. As highlighted in our recent Exploiting the Underwater Battlespace whitepaper, adversaries are becoming more capable, more numerous, and more willing to operate below the threshold of open conflict. Understanding the spectrum of risk is essential.
Across the defence community, teams are working to build a clearer picture of the threats, and develop ways to detect, deter, and respond to them. That includes deploying countermeasures before an incident occurs, and ensuring we can attribute responsibility when something does go wrong. This proactive approach - engineering the underwater battlespace to our advantage - is both challenging and vital.
Exploiting the underwater battlespace
This all poses significant challenges for governments in the context of defence and national security, particularly around three core areas:
- Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
- Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
- Critical Undersea infrastructure Protection (CUIP)
When I think about our brand ethos at Digital Intelligence - delivering the Power of Perspective - this work feels especially meaningful. The subsea environment is inherently difficult to observe, interpret, and understand. Helping our customers gain clarity in such a complex domain is central to what we do. It’s about ensuring they have the right information at the right moment to make confident, informed decisions.
What drives me is the impact this work has on national resilience. Strengthening subsea defence capability means protecting the digital and energy lifelines that support modern society. There is work to be done, and we are passionate about the part we are playing.