Everything is designed for things are the designed
Ørsted + ATP want the North Sea Energy Island to be more than just an island. It will draw upon a ground-breaking modular design to become a future-proof and innovative piece of Danish infrastructure at the centre of the world’s largest offshore network of green energy.
Today, Ørsted + ATP are taking another significant step to make the North Sea Energy Island an innovative and smart island and a centre of a green and digitally connected tomorrow. Ørsted + 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 the most extensive high-capacity network 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.
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 + 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 in the next phases of the regional offshore wind build-out by enabling for example autonomous operations and further digitising offshore wind.