Ørsted and ATP have signed an agreement with GlobalConnect to make the North Sea Energy Island a cross-border digital hub. This is expected to be a major opportunity to deliver on the future digitisation agenda of Northern Europe and a key enabler to potentially attract large-scale investments in digital infrastructure, including data centres.
GlobalConnect has one of the most extensive high-capacity networks and experience in Northern Europe with more than 100,000 km of fibre across the region. Data consumption is expected to rise significantly in the coming years as more devices connect to the Internet. This will require a capacity expansion of the grid transporting data between the North Sea countries and a smart North Sea Energy Island offers a natural intersection for this grid, while also being a reliable source of renewable energy to power the digitisation.
“The North Sea Energy Island offers Denmark a unique opportunity to become a hub for the key technologies of tomorrow and thereby attract significant investments within both renewable energy and digitalisation,” said Rasmus Errboe, Head of Region Continental Europe at Ørsted. “We’re very excited to work with GlobalConnect to enable the future connectivity needs of the region, while leveraging our unique modular design to potentially attract global tech investments to the region, including on the North Sea Energy Island.”
Furthermore, by making the North Sea Energy Island a digital hub, Denmark will be centrally placed to attract investments in two of the most significant long-term growth industries globally: renewable energy and digital infrastructure.
In recent years, the Nordic countries have become home to some of the world’s largest tech companies. Building high-capacity and secure digital infrastructure across Nordic and European countries is key to meeting the demands of the tech giants, as well as society’s growing need for robust internet connections.
With today’s agreement, Ørsted and ATP and GlobalConnect are paving the way to attract large operators. The proximity to large-scale emission-free energy and GlobalConnect’s secure and resilient digital backbone could thereby attract significant investments to the North Sea Energy Island and, consequently, to Denmark. Additionally, the smart energy island will become a central part of the next phases of the regional offshore wind build-out by enabling for example autonomous operations and further digitising offshore wind.
“The North Sea Energy Island will play a significant part in future-proofing the region while strengthening the Nordic’s position as an attractive hub for transporting data across the world,” said Martin Lippert, Group CEO of GlobalConnect. “As a provider of cross-border critical digital infrastructure, we are very excited to share the vision with Ørsted and ATP to build a smart energy island with a resilient and secure network that paves the way for the digital future of offshore wind while providing a unique attraction to global tech giants.”
