Inside America's only internet sea cable maker, supplying Google and Microsoft

Ninety-nine percent of international internet traffic flows through cables stretched across the ocean floor. Demand is at an all-time high as the world becomes more dependent on cloud computing and AI. But only one US company can both make and lay them. We visited its 73-year-old factory and went aboard a multimillion-dollar cable-laying ship to see how it is keeping up — and why our data still needs to travel thousands of feet beneath the sea.

Ninety-nine percent of international internet traffic flows through cables stretched across the ocean floor. Demand is at an all-time high as the world becomes more dependent on cloud computing and AI. But only one US company can both make and lay them. We visited its 73-year-old factory and went aboard a multimillion-dollar cable-laying ship to see how it is keeping up — and why our data still needs to travel thousands of feet beneath the sea.