Ep. 36 - Rebuilding Internet Routes and Securing Data Infrastructure, with Bevan Slattery

Bevan Slattery, Australian entrepreneur and founder of multiple telecommunications ventures, spoke at The Tech Capital the 3rd annual APAC Finance Forum in Singapore on the evolving digital infrastructure landscape in Australia and Asia.

Slattery noted the extensive rebuilding of internet connectivity over the past 12 to 24 months. “When you look at communications from the United States to Singapore, for example, or even India, they kind of realise we need new routes away from routes that are, I'd say, at risk at some level,” he said. “Really we're seeing an entire new route being built from the US to Australia and then Australia all deep water down the bottom then kind of coming back up to Singapore and India and then beyond.”

He touched on the unprecedented scale of investment in data centres and AI facilities, while stressing operational risks. “People aren't realising is that they're still data centres at the end of the day, so data's got to flow in,” he said. “From a risk standpoint… you just have to make sure that you build your infrastructure and facilities to be able to withstand and evolve as the computer evolves over 25 years. If you redo your architecture and make sure it's flexible, you've got this asset that can go for 25 years and last, you know, four generations of GPUs.”

Slattery also addressed recent disruptions to subsea cables in the Middle East, citing four recent cable breaks. “It doesn't look like sabotage. It just looks like genuine,” he said. “What our focus is on is new corridors. So we built Perthaman, the only cable… that avoided issues and challenges like that.” He revealed the company had secured terrestrial capacity from Oman through Saudi Arabia and Jordan into the Mediterranean to mitigate risk.

Discussing regulatory challenges, Slattery acknowledged the complexity of establishing new infrastructure in previously undeveloped locations. “If you keep building to the same location, regulators, local government, environment agencies… they've seen applications before and approvals are consistent. But now that we're actually needed to build these new routes that are diverse away from these other locations… we're having to go through this education process. It's hard work, but once we do that, the community sees the benefit, it'll actually be easier for the second and third person,” he said.

Looking ahead, Slattery said he was satisfied with the current state of connectivity investment. “The position we're in is such a great spot… we still own 100% of the business from a sovereign capability in Australia… the world is now realising each country needs a sovereign capability or a trusted partner. The other thing that's really helped a lot is just the amount of investment happening in data centres and AI. Connectivity's got to follow.”

Slattery also outlined his philanthropic projects, including the creation of a million square metres of tolerant reef over eight years and research on Megaptera species. “By understanding where the Megaptera go and what they're doing, we're actually having a much bigger understanding of the ecosystem… everything from small fish to birds to entirely new aggregation zones,” he said.