When the presidents of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan inaugurated a 380-kilometer fiber-optic cable beneath the Caspian Sea on October 15, they opened the first fiber-optic link across the Caspian seabed. Designed for a capacity of at least 400 terabits per second, the cable matters chiefly because it creates an alternative: data moving between Central Asia and Europe can now take a westbound route that avoids Russian networks. Kazakhstan gains an additional international connection, and Azerbaijan strengthens its role as a transit hub. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which depend on Kazakhstan for international connectivity, stand to gain indirectly, and carriers and cloud providers gain another potential route between Asia and Europe. How far these gains extend will depend on how much traffic the link comes to carry.