The critical tech staying safe by going underground

BBC  |  Chris Baraniuk

EarthGrid tested a plasma-torch tunnel boring machine in January 2026 that reaches 27,000°C to melt granite, reflecting a broader surge in demand for undergrounding critical infrastructure. Russian drone strikes during the war in Ukraine have exposed the severe vulnerability of above-ground energy networks and telecommunications, accelerating efforts to protect vital assets subterraneanly.

Engineering firms like Joseph Gallagher report increased interest from European states bordering Russia seeking to bury energy cables, pipelines, and data infrastructure against physical and electronic attacks. Facilities such as the Trentino DataMine in Italy's Dolomite Mountains now house servers 100 metres underground in naturally cooled caverns protected by 90 million cubic metres of rock. Meanwhile, subsea internet cables are increasingly buried up to 3 metres deep to prevent physical damage, while projects like London's £1bn, 18-mile power tunnel demonstrate urban adoption. Despite high excavation costs and technical risks like gas release, undergrounding is emerging as a crucial physical defence strategy for irreplaceable technological assets.

Comment

The deployment of EarthGrid's 27,000°C plasma-torch boring machine addresses a fundamental bottleneck in physical hardening by accelerating subterranean excavation speeds through hard granite strata. Traditional mechanical rotary bits suffer severe thermal degradation and physical wear, making deep geological hardening financially unviable for most critical civilian infrastructure. By using plasma arc spallation to vaporise rock without direct tool contact, the system circumvents mechanical tool wear and substantially increases excavation velocity.

This operational acceleration alters the defensive calculus against massed drone strikes and standoff precision weaponry demonstrated in eastern European battlefields. Consequently, high-speed thermal boring allows civilian operators to replicate the subterranean hardening seen at the Trentino DataMine without suffering multi-year civil engineering delays.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which carries more strategic weight when hardening critical infrastructure against precision drone strikes — decentralising surface grid architecture or using thermal boring systems like EarthGrid to submerge core data and power hubs underground?

The available evidence points toward a dual-track response where high-value, centralized assets like data hubs and key transformer nodes are prioritized for deep excavation using systems like EarthGrid's thermal boring technology. Decentralized surface networks lack the economic justification for universal undergrounding, ensuring that physical hardening remains concentrated on irreplaceable core nodes rather than full distribution lines.

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