India, May 3 -- Can machines come to the rescue when mankind faces a threat to its digital lifeline?

Odisha-based Coratia Technologies is working precisely on this. "We deploy our robots in the ocean to carry out surveys, collect samples, and do the pre-emptive remote sensing to ward off any potential threat," cofounder and chief executive Debendra Pradhan claimed.

Coratia's work attained significance in the wake of Iran threatening to blow up the undersea cable lines running deep down the Strait of Hormuz. The war in West Asia that flared up late in February has veered the global attention to the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

While a fifth of the global crude oil and natural gas shipments pass through ...