The news follows on from the earlier announced partnership between Cinia and Far North Digital for the €1 billion (130 billion yen) Arctic cable. ARTERIA will serve as the leading Japanese partner to develop and build the Far North Fiber subsea cable project.
“Far North Fiber will be the first multicontinental cable system and the first Pan-Arctic system. First of its kind very often causes a paradigm shift," said Ari-Jussi Knaapila (pictured), CEO of Cinia.
"Cinia is very pleased to have all three continents represented in the development team, and I warmly welcome ARTERIA to join the project with Cinia and Far North Digital.”
Specifically, Cinia, a network, cybersecurity and software solutions provider and ARTERIA, the telecoms infrastructure operator have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build the subsea cable system.
Once completed, the 14,000km joint network will run from Japan, via the Northwest Passage, to Europe with landings in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. It also has European landings planned in Norway, Finland and Ireland.
"The Far North Fiber project is an epoch-making project to build the last remaining submarine cable route connecting Europe with Japan and Asia at the lowest latency and will greatly contribute to the further development of the digital infrastructure environment in Japan regions such as Hokkaido," said Koji Kabumoto, representative director, president & CEO of ARTERIA
As the project's Asian partner ARTERIA will lead in the development of the network on the Japanese side, which according to all parties will serve as 'the gateway in Asia'. Running on a short optical distance between Asia and Europe, the Far North Fiber system will reduce latency between the two locations.
In addition, the system will support the development of digital economies both nationally and internationally between continents. Security and sustainability are also some of key considerations driving the system development.
"In addition, the new international network realized by the Far North Fiber will be able to create new demand for connectivity in a wide range of fields such as industry, academia, and culture in Europe, Japan, and Asia," added Kabumoto.
It has been a long road for this particular cable project. Rumours first began swirling back in 2018 about plans for a subsea cable project that will link Europe to Japan and China across the Arctic Ocean. Later that year, Capacity spoke with Knaapila on the company's later named, Arctic Connect subsea system for its feature on cables in the Arctic.
By 2019, Cinia signed a MoU with Russian telco MegaFon, who by 2020 had launched the first stage of its offshore survey as part of the project. Then by 2021, the entire project came to a halt following reports of stalled negotiations with the project’s Japanese partners.
Due to become ready for service by the end of 2025, Alcatel Submarine Networks has been chosen as the lead engineering, procurement, construction partner for the project.
