 I'm Jean-Marc Limer and joining me today is Christine Kofutz Solam, Nordic Sales Director of Bulk Infrastructure to talk about noise and then mark status in the market in 2022 and beyond. Christine, welcome to JSA. Thank you so much for talking to me. I mean, Bulk has had a really busy 2021 and as we are starting now 2022, you're set to have a really busy 2022 as well. But before we talk about Bulk itself, what can we expect from the Norwegian and Danish status in the markets in this new year? I think for Norway especially, we see that Norway is maturing as a data center nation, mostly because of the new fiber networks being put in place for Norway. So you have the helpful cable going from Norway and Denmark into New Jersey. So the first transatlantic cable linking Norway directly to the US, which is a huge thing, of course. And also the sort of sustainability point of view for many companies all around the world. Finally, realizing that Norway is actually a real, we're in place to go. We see that our CO2 emission per per kilowatt hour in Norway is on a national level, eight grams, which again, compared to the Netherlands or Germany is where we're reaching 400 to 500 grams per kilowatt hour. So we see companies that want real physical green power, they turn to Norway now. Yeah. I didn't know about those big numbers. And it's a massive distribution from a country like Germany, where we have one of the largest states in the markets in the world, not even just Europe. But talking about bulk, what has the business been up to? Because you do have quite a lot going on. You've got, you're expanding to Denmark, you've got fiber systems, subsidy systems as well. Give us an overview of the bulk realm and what are the market drivers for bulk? So the market drivers are pretty basic. I would say we are trying to enable the Nordic region for the rest of the world, and especially Norway. For a long time, we have seen Sweden being a good place for data centers. And we see that primarily because of the networks, the fiber networks in Sweden have been in place to support this growth. Then we have seen Denmark coming along as well, being closer to continental Europe. So it's easier to get multiple fiber pairs back to the main regions of Germany, Netherlands, UK. But we see that Norway now with all of the networks is getting ready for this. So our focus right now is to utilize the assets that we actually have. And the assets in Oslo, we have a huge data center. We call it the Oslo Internet Exchange. 70 different networks, 4I access, yeah, can get up to 20 megawatt plus. So it's a metro data center, typically. And then on my background, I have our N21 campus, which can be the largest data center campus on renewable energy, 100% renewable. You see a travel station, a transformer station in the background, it's 3.6 gigawatts. So we are basically a neighbor to a very large renewable power station. And it's also the landing station of multiple subsea cables. So it's sort of a combination of renewable power, subsea systems, and short time to market. And then for Denmark, we build a smaller data center, but we have a lot of options to scale and grow there. It's right next to where Facebook recently announced a new data center to be built. And it's also sort of the landing station for copper cable going to the Netherlands, how Hengsten cable going to UK, Danai is going to Iceland. Then we have a new subsea system called House Seal going from Esverg to Christian Sand. And it's sort of combining all of these different assets, both partners and our own, bringing them to life and then making ready for the market, basically. Okay, that's interesting. Are you of your opinion that the Nordics could serve Europe from a data center standpoint? So some people used to argue a few years ago when we still have physical events. One of the big topics was that we could put all the big data centers in the Nordics and then we'll just put the edge points across Europe to service the market and even in a way slide it down to the north of Africa. Do you think that there is still something that people are still looking at? Is that an idea that's still on the table or you think we will see more really just the digitalization of larger data centers and then the popping out of like smaller edge locations? I think that I would call it a reverse edge where you basically move the workload away from the cities and into the most sustainable areas. I think the issue is there's a lot of legislation and regulations that prohibit this. There have been some issues with latency. I think that's also sort of, you see the Nordics, it seems to be far away, but from this campus in Christenstown to Frankfurt, it's up 15 milliseconds and you can have multiple fiber pairs if you like and I think it's sort of been, it's too easy to do something in Frankfurt for example, even though you hear about the markets being sort of jammed. There's no power, no space, then they keep developing new space. So I think what we will see now is people getting more clear on where they put their workloads since the networks and the sort of communication between the intelligence and the compute will get better with more networks in place. So see heavy workloads in the Nordic hopefully and then the intelligence sticking in those core markets. But yeah, I would say that the 3.6 gigawatts we have here in Christenstown, it could support a lot of the European workloads. Well, I don't know exactly how much the entire of Europe produces or consumes in terms of energy. We know that at least the four big markets and I'm probably doubling as well. So the five big markets, they are about 2.1 gigawatts. So that station right behind you might have enough power to power the entire data center economy of Europe of today. Funny enough, we have done calculations and it would land about 3.6 but again, growing market and I would say that I think moving workloads is more difficult. But with the sort of demand coming up then you need to be more, not creative, but think a little bit more where you actually put your loads and maybe also put a megawatt in Frankfurt and 10 megawatts in Norway. Yeah, balance things out. Christen, you kind of already touched on what I'm going to ask next, but you mentioned some expansions in Denmark. Let's talk about expansions. What are you working on to launch as bulk? New locations, new products, new services, but especially locations, where are you going? We just spoke about bringing stuff in the Nordics. I mean, are you going to expand in the Nordics? Are you going to start building smaller things around Europe? Do they bring your traffic into the Nordics? Give us an overview of what's the plan. Yeah, it might be a bit boring from bulk, but right now we're sort of using the assets that we have and really getting focus on those assets because we really think they have huge potential. Christian Sand, again, has such a huge potential, but it needs to be, we need to focus on actually getting this to the market. And for Esberg, it's a totally different plan. Esberg, that's a new connectivity hub for the northern part of Europe. So I can say that we won't do anything, but we really do have a strong focus on actually using the data centers that we have in building and connecting those to our fiber networks that we have in building, but also making it much easier for basically companies all around the globe to connect into those regions. So we do do partnerships with global carriers to actually being able to support companies with a port in New York or a port in Frankfurt or in Singapore where you easily connect into our data centers. And I mean, speaking about partnerships as well, you've recently announced the partnership with the kicks. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but you know what I'm talking about, and you can correct me. So talk us through the partnership. What does it mean? What makes you unique? What does it bring to the table? Yeah, it's, it has been a long journey. So it's D-Kicks. So kind of got it right. Yeah, it's quite right. So D-Kicks is the largest interconnection platform in the world. 85 terabytes of traffic going through their systems, India, Europe, US, it's a massive machine. And the journey with them have been over three years, actually. So we came up with the idea that we thought you should build an internet exchange in Christiansand since we are building new cables into a region, then we can use this as sort of a gateway into the Nordic region. And the main focus was not to travel into those congested bottlenecks that we see. So meaning Copenhagen, Stockholm, being sort of a little bit more east. And also, yeah, being, yeah, not congested, but you see bottlenecks there that can be avoided. So we reached out to D-Kicks for, yeah, three, three and a half years ago and said you should build an internet exchange. And then we have developed this product all along and the sort of idea is to do three things. So to do local peering in those new markets being as spirit in Christiansand, where you can sort of take the traffic as it lands in the country and distribute it in local regions, and then do distributed peering or remote peering into those mega regions like New York or Frankfurt or Singapore, India, where you basically can produce sort of content traffic in Norway and easily get it distributed out to your home market without thinking about extra co-location, extra different kind of carriers to support this. And then also, being a huge interconnection platform for cloud services, etc. So that's the main thought about this. And of course, D-Kicks, they are huge in mid Europe, Marseille, Frankfurt, Madrid, Portugal, Barcelona. So they wanted to look north as well to be part of this green journey. Which makes sense. I mean, if it's green, it has to be in the Nordics as well. I think, yeah, there are many ways of being green, but we look at the physical part of being green. And to us, Norway is a good choice to lower your carbon footprint. Okay. And then, Christian, last question. So recently, your government announced the data center strategy. What's your thoughts on that? How do you expect these to evolve? What do you expect the outcome to be in the next few years, not just 2022, but even beyond that? Because your government seems to be very involved. I mean, all in all of the countries, government seems to be quite involved in the industry, which is quite unique compared to some other countries, even across Europe. Just to share your thoughts, just very briefly on the initiative. I think it's, of course, positive that you have a government that wants to support this. Also, government is seeing that we need new alternatives for Norway. So we have been huge on oil, of course, which can't continue. So to support sort of the future growth of Norway, we call data the new oil. And we see a lot of our employees working as technicians on critical facilities, etc. They come from the oil business. So there will be a natural shift there. But also that we can use a lot of the excess power that we have in Norway. There are a lot of, called green pockets. There are a lot of areas that actually have a lot of power. Christian San being a good example. And I think the government realized that this power needs to be spent wisely and also have clear directions for the data center industry. I think also that a lot of industries will be battling about power. And if you just have renewable, that's one thing that's good. If it's physical renewable energy, but also having excess of renewable energy is important going on. Because you have the transport industry, you have so many industries that needs to be electrified. So it's so important that you find the right spaces and the government can help you sort of develop the right spaces and areas to build the right data centers for this. And also supporting new fiber networks, etc. with government funds is of course important to support this journey. It's good to see a government actually taking proactive action in helping to build rather than helping to put a massive legislation wall in front of the sector. And Christian, if people want to know more about bulk and de-kicks and everything that you guys are up to nowadays, where they can go to? Of course, our web page, so bulkinfrastructure.com have a lot of information. Follow us in the media. We do a lot of exciting things. We will announce new partnerships and new stuff going forward as well. And of course, we will follow the clients as well. So if we are being asked to build somewhere, then we might just do that. But yeah, bulkinfrastructure.com would be a good place to start. Okay, well, Christian, thank you so much for your time. And I hope you keep well with everything that's going on again. Thank you to our viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts. And don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.