Orsted and ATP have signed an agreement with digital infrastructure provider GlobalConnect to make the North Sea Energy Island a backbone in the future digitisation of Northern Europe and attract digital investments for Denmark.
The partners will work together to make the North Sea Energy Island a “cross-border digital hub”.
They said the development is expected to be a “major opportunity” to deliver on the future digitisation agenda of Northern Europe and a “key enabler” to potentially attract investment in data centres and other digital infrastructure.
GlobalConnect has 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 digitisation expansion.
Rasmus Errboe, head of Continental Europe at Orsted, said: “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.
“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.”
Martin Lippert, group CEO of GlobalConnect, added: “As a provider of cross-border critical digital infrastructure, we are very excited to share the vision with Orsted + 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.”