Bulk was named as one of the co-builders of the new system alongside Aqua Comms and Facebook, back in 2018 and will act as owner and landing party for the Norwegian branch of the system. Under the terms of the agreement, this also includes the termination points in the New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX) in New Jersey, US; Dublin, Ireland and Bulk facilities at both the N01 campus in southern Norway and their facility in western Denmark. Aqua Comms will sell capacity services and raw spectrum on its portion of the HAVFRUE cable systems to called America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2).
“It is a testament to our company that Amazon Web Services have entered into this agreement with us for a significant portion of our trans-Atlantic subsea cable network. Having their presence on our core infrastructure will also open new opportunities for both companies,” said Peder Naerboe (pictured), founder and owner of Bulk Infrastructure.
The company says that the news opens up further opportunities to use Norway’s surplus of cost efficient and stable base load renewable energy, in addition to creating diverse routes to Europe and the Nordics.
Only last month, Capacity reported news that a new submarine cable system connecting the city of Øysanden, in Melhus municipality in Norway, just south of the city of Trondheim to Killala Bay, County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland. Tentatively called Celtic Norse, the 2,000km cable is being planned as an extension of the Aqua Comms existing AEC-1 cable, which runs from Ireland to New York. A regionally owned company called Nordavind Data Center Sites however is developing Celtic Norse.
“This agreement also recognizes our commitment to enable the great potential that the Nordic region has to offer as an attractive platform for cost efficient and sustainable digital services, continued Naerboe. “In turn, we are excited to see AWS’s continued commitment to the region – with the December launch of the AWS Europe (Stockholm) Region, numerous Edge locations throughout the Nordics, and the recent news that they will open offices in Oslo, Norway. We believe our infrastructure will drive further interest in our Nordic proposition and capabilities.”
