Extending our AI superhighway into the Nordics and Baltics

After explosive data center expansion in the US, the AI-driven data center boom seems to finally be taking off in Europe. But not all markets are born equal. Many factors are converging to position the Nordics as an AI data center hub, including the lowest levels of grid congestion in Europe, reduced cooling needs due to cooler climates, renewable energy options and other sustainability benefits. This is driving a gradual, but accelerating, shift from increasingly congested markets.

According to CBRE, 57% of all AI signings volumes in Europe in 2025 have been for capacity in the Nordics region. Ember, a global think tank, has forecasted that data center electricity demand will triple in various Nordic countries by 2030, driving the region’s share of European datacenter demand from a mere 10% to 20%.

Hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google are doubling down, with “neoscaler” projects quickly adding up, such as the Stargate Initiative in Northern Norway, delivering up to 230 megawatts of capacity powered by renewable hydropower, making it the first AI gigafactory by OpenAI in the region. As if this weren’t enough, investments from various players like Brookfield and Blackstone have further added to the pace of deployments.

But land, facilities and power aren’t enough. To monetize these enormous investments, you don’t only need to power up your GPUs – you need to feed them with data from clouds and data centers, and distribute trained models, outputs and interactions to end-users and agents wherever they sit.

This data movement requires excellent connectivity – and lots of it. Moreover, these facilities need 100% uptime. Hence, based on what’s already happened in North America, the scalability and resiliency requirements will remain.

However, as European facilities do not have access to the gigawatt power allocations of their largest US counterparts, data centers will likely be smaller and more clustered, which increases the need for distributed training. The hyperscalers and neoclouds behind these facilities will rely on excellent backbone connectivity to “glue” these facilities together, making network diversity and reach critical.

While some will want to scale from a dozen fiber pairs to a full cable of their own, others will need more distributed reach into private data centers and enterprise WAN environments or will need to make their AI factory accessible to end-users over the Internet. So, where does Arelion fit?

Building for an AI future since day one

Ironically, this boom for bandwidth and high-count fiber needs was what once sparked Arelion’s inception. Since the height of the ‘90s telecom boom, we’ve constructed our fiber routes in anticipation of heightened demands. In the Nordics, as well as in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, we built long-haul routes with up to 10 ducts in the ground.

However, as network technology developed, supply outpaced demand, and most of this infrastructure remained unused. Now, with fiber demand surging and new technologies like Hollowcore on the horizon, our fiber and duct infrastructure is already there to scale. Whilst many other providers have filled their infrastructure completely, we already have that available capacity.

From a routing perspective, we connect diversely between major cities within the Nordics and Baltics and have multiple entry and exit points in the region. We also offer meshing with 13 subsea cables in the area and across the Baltic Sea, allowing us to build the AI superhighway that will support technological innovation throughout Europe and beyond.

Our recent investments in the Nordics and Baltics

The Nordic and Baltic AI boom is happening right in our backyard. Here are some of our recent investments to support this growth.

In June 2025, we scaled our existing Tier-1 network between Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen to connect hyperscale data centers and serve the region’s booming AI markets with 400/800G capable optical systems. This accelerated investment enhances diversity and bandwidth for current customers while supporting new customers quickly and cost-effectively.

More recently, after more than a year in the making, we completed a fully diverse, high-capacity route between Helsinki and Warsaw, creating a resilient ring for traffic between Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. This route, which was announced in October last year, delivers backbone-grade performance with predictable service-level agreements (SLAs) to reduce downtime risk.

In addition, a new route between Denmark, Sweden and Poland, combining terrestrial and subsea assets, aims to bring a unique and diverse low-latency path to the region, completely avoiding historical chokepoints like Hamburg.

Finally, in September 2025, we announced the installation of new high-fiber-count cables in existing ducts between Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. This investment secures long-term fiber availability to meet fast-growing demand for AI infrastructure. The upgrade also provides businesses with direct connectivity into Europe, North America and beyond.

However, it’s not all about physical resiliency. Let’s also briefly touch on the hot topics on everyone’s minds: data sovereignty and security.

Keeping your data on net and protected

The Nordics have also seen their share of initiatives aimed at strengthening European digital sovereignty, such as Evroc, Sferical AI and a Nokia-led consortium to establish an AI gigafactory in Finland. But, as mentioned above, sovereignty also requires control over data in transit.

Arelion supports this by enabling deterministic routing, ensuring that data is only transferred on diverse paths without crossing specific country borders. Second, many AI applications feed off of or make use of the global Internet. Our connectivity services are unique because up to 85% of data never leaves our network or most operators and cloud providers.

So, if you’re an enterprise user and need to reach your cloud, you won’t see traffic leaving your domain. Our Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) and routing protections also bolster security, ensuring your traffic is protected from malicious actors, such as hijacks that re-route traffic to unknown effects.

We’re ready…are you?

As AI reshapes the technology ecosystem, our network is future-proofed to spur continued growth in the Nordics, Baltics and beyond. With these developments, enterprises need a powerful network underlay that maximizes scalability, capacity and reach. Having built our infrastructure with these qualities in mind since the ‘90s, our network is ready.

Is yours?

Johan Ottosson, VP Strategy & Product Management

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