Grid Telecom is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) of Greece, while Quadrivium Digital is an infrastructure platform that builds interconnection data centres.
This CLS will be hosted within Quadrivium’s 20MW interconnection data centre campus in Chania and will act as a new node to anchor international subsea cable systems from Asia and Africa crossing the Eastern Mediterranean.
It will connect Greece and the broader Balkan/Mediterranean region with Turkey, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, all GCC countries, and other East, South, and West destinations.
Grid Telecom and Quadrivium will offer infrastructure for the secure landing and operation of subsea optical fibre cable systems in Crete, including services for housing the power feeding and subsea line terminating equipment, as well as other mission-critical equipment for interconnection and peering of optical, Ethernet and IP data traffic.
Quadrivium’s facility in Chania combines world-class landing infrastructure with a Tier III+ data centre, providing a “CLS-within-a-data centre” total solution.
A buried borepipe into the sea with eight ducts will provide a cutting-edge solution, compliant with international specifications. Multiple Beach Manholes (BMH) will land subsea cables and connect directly via secure fronthaul into Quadrivium’s data centre.
Grid Telecom will provide a diverse backhaul network to all existing and new data centres on the island of Crete, the Greek mainland and in neighboring countries.
Our plans to partner with Quadrivium Digital in building a new CLS in Crete will significantly support the implementation of new, international alternative routes,” said Kostas Agathakis, chairman of Grid Telecom.
“Moreover, it will enhance the strategic role of Crete as a crucial open access interconnection node in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans,”
Sitting in a geographically strategic location, Crete has been an international trade hub between Europe, Africa, and Asia for thousands of years.
Quadrivium believes Chania is an emerging digital hub and serves as a gateway for companies to serve their customers across countries In Europe, Asia and Africa from a single highly resilient and secure site within the EU.
The data centre has rooftop heat rejection, and minimum redundancy of N+2 cooling to data halls. Quadrivium are targeting a power usage efficiency of better than 1.25 for the site.
Aditya Ayyagari, Quadrivium’s CEO, said Chania is the Eastern-most location where international networks can peer within the European Union’s regulatory and commercial framework, with 10-15 ms latencies into Greece, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Israel and GCC countries – cutting latencies into Marseille by half.
“The ability to directly cross-connect with other subsea cables, backhaul carriers and digital platforms within Quadrivium’s Interconnection Data Centre creates a rich ecosystem that brings digital transformation to Greece, Crete, and the Municipality of Chania,” he added.
