A Nordic consortium of five are exploring the possibility of building one of the largest digital infrastructure projects in European history – a fiber cable spanning between Northern Europe and East Asia and US via the Arctic. The Project, called Polar Connect, has been granted 4 million Euros from the European Commission to fund the project phase: Polar Connect Step 1.
Today, 90% of all data communication between Europe & Asia passes through the Red Sea, a route increasingly impacted by geopolitical challenges. The ambition of the Polar Connect project is to offer a significantly safer and shorter route via the Arctic, which will decrease the time to send data, cut latency and improve resilience. As part of this initiative, GlobalConnect has joined the international consortium with the aim to strengthen digital resilience and security in the digitized world. The other Nordic partners are Vetenskapsrådet via Sunet, NORDUnet, Polarforskningssekretariatet and Danmarks Tekniske Universitet.
Polar Connect Step 1 starts in 2025, with bottom surveys of the optimal route and other preparations being made. The Swedish government is discussing the build of a brand-new ice breaker vessel, capable of breaking through four-meter-thick and unexplored Arctic ice. When the cable is to be laid, the new vessel and the Swedish ice breakerOden will be used simultaneously. The cable is set to be deployed at ~4000-meter depth in the Arctic Ocean and is planned to be ready by 2030.
Future-proofing the Northern European digital infrastructure
GlobalConnect brings several years of experience from deploying sea cables in Scandinavia, recently completing the largest digital infrastructure project in the Nordics for the last decade, a 2600 km fiber cable from Northern Sweden to Berlin, capable of transporting all data in the Nordics.
“We are excited to announce our participation in this groundbreaking Nordic consortium. At GlobalConnect, we work tirelessly to future-proof the digital infrastructure in Northern Europe and beyond and this project represents a giant leap in that plan. By enabling a faster, more secure digital link between Europe, Asia, and the US, we are catering to the accelerated global demand for high data capacity and resilient digital infrastructure that empowers our society,” says Pär Jansson, SVP, GlobalConnect Carrier.
