Microsoft links Red Sea cable cuts to global internet slowdown affecting 17% of traffic — latency spikes across Asia and Middle East

Microsoft is reportedly linked to a recent Red Sea cable cut that disrupted internet traffic on Saturday, September 6, 2025. Its Azure cloud platform, which relies heavily on submarine cables for global connectivity, was one of the first to confirm problems. The incident severed connections carrying around 17% of global internet traffic between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

The company warned customers to expect increased latency as traffic was rerouted through alternative pathways (via Tom's Hardware). It’s a stark reminder of how fragile these digital lifelines are, especially as the world leans more heavily on cloud platforms and AI services that depend on them.

Azure rerouted traffic through emergency pathways outside the Red Sea to keep services running, though performance still degraded in key areas, including India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates. Microsoft has cautioned that full repairs could take weeks or even months.

What happened in the Red Sea?

According to reports, the cable cuts occurred on September 6, 2025, at around 05:45 UTC near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The confirmed affected systems include South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SMW4), India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE), and FALCON GCX.

"SMW4" is an 18,800 km submarine cable system linking Singapore to France, carrying huge volumes of internet traffic between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, while "IMEWE" is a 12,000 km system that connects India to Europe via the Middle East, and remains critical for India–Europe connectivity. "FALCON GCX", meanwhile, is a regional cable owned by Global Cloud Xchange that links Gulf states such as Kuwait through the Red Sea and beyond.

These aren’t just wires but digital highways, moving almost all intercontinental internet traffic — from streaming and cloud services to financial transactions and global business operations. Independent network monitoring for Cloudflare showed significant latency increases (via computing), around 20% slower traffic between Delhi and London, and 30% between Mumbai and Frankfurt.

The exact cause is still under investigation, though initial analysis points to what might be accidental anchor damage from commercial shipping. Geopolitical concerns remain, however, given the current climate in the region.

What comes next?

Microsoft reportedly believes it could take weeks or even months to repair the damage. Specialized ships will need to locate and lift the cables before splicing in replacements — a complex task made harder by the fact that only around 80 repair vessels exist worldwide (via GSIS).

For now, temporary fixes are in place. Traffic has been rerouted, but that means latency and performance issues are likely to persist in the short term.

The Red Sea remains one of the most crowded cable corridors on the planet, making further incidents likely, whether through accidents or geopolitical tensions. The latest cuts have also renewed discussions about alternative routes, from new terrestrial links to Arctic cables and satellites, to reduce reliance on this single chokepoint.

For now, all that most of us can do is wait and hope that investment in alternative routes moves forward. These discussions often take years before decisions are made, and even longer before new systems are in place.

With Microsoft committing $80 billion to cloud infrastructure, AI, and related services, this is not an area that can be overlooked. As these sectors continue to grow, keeping the world’s digital lifelines secure will only become more critical.