The project is valued at 1 billion SEK ($96.7 million) and it will serve as a key infrastructure route between the Nordics and mainland Europe.
The cable runs from Northern Sweden to Berlin, spanning three countries, bringing GlobalConnect’s total fibre network to over 200,000km in Northern Europe.
“This cable will take part in futureproofing and strengthening the digital infrastructure in Northern Europe. It caters for more robustness with diverse options to route traffic resulting in improved national security in our region,” said Martin Lippert, CEO of GlobalConnect.
“The improved digital infrastructure is also a key factor in attracting global tech companies, as the Nordics is currently a global hotspot for tech investments and approximately half of all data centre investments in Europe are expected to go to the Nordics in the coming years.”
Specifically, the route covers Sweden to Denmark and from Denmark to Germany, including a 700km subsea cable.
The construction of the super cable has taken several years and includes heavy trenching in the Northern parts of Sweden, encountering the harsh winter storms of the Baltic Sea, trenching the seabed with a subsea cable, and creating landing points on several beachheads.
To establish the landing site in Germany, more than 200 bombs from the WW2 had to be removed from the Baltic Sea and 1,300 sqm was scanned to uncover archaeological findings.
“This project is a massive achievement and a key enabler for future digitalisation. There is an ever-increasing demand for fibre in the Nordics,” added Lippert.
“Most of the digital infrastructure between Sweden and Germany is 20 years old and the few existing cables have limited number of fibres available for new demand. A fibre shortage risks constituting a bottleneck for the continued digitalisation and the possibilities to reach EU targets for digitalisation.“
The cable consists of 96 fibre pairs and has the capacity to transport all data in the Nordics, equivalent of 3,052Tbps.
The cable between Bornholm and Sassnitz has now been merged on the seabed and tests will be conducted before going live in Q1 of 2024.
