Subsea demand is outstripping supply

An ITW Asia panel dedicated to the market drivers for Asia’s subsea sector opened with a simple question. Is demand outstripping supply?

The answer was broadly ‘yes’ – even before AI comes into play. This is due to geopolitical hurdles for new builds, pressure on existing Asia-Europe capacity, and the continued vulnerability of the Red Sea bottleneck.

The predicted numbers back this up. According to Telin’s Budi Satria Dharma Purba, by 2028 there will be three times more demand than supply for routes within Asia. For trans-Pacific demand, this multiple will hit 4x – even after the spree of announcements of project launches and completions towards the back end of 2025.