Rodschat: A conventional network converts traffic between optical and electrical form at several points for routing and processing. These points can cause delay, buffering and variation in performance.

An all-photonics network (APN) is designed to keep traffic on more direct optical wavelength paths. This reduces avoidable network overhead and makes performance more predictable. 

For an offshore data center, that could support reliable links to onshore users, cloud regions and operations teams. It could also help with distributed compute, replication and remote control.  

Offshore: What lessons from the Taipei to Tokyo deployment by NTT and Chunghwa Telecom are most relevant to future offshore or floating data center applications? 

Rodschat: The Taipei to Tokyo deployment by Chunghwa Telecom and NTT provides a strong demonstration of what APNs can achieve over a long-distance subsea route. While the deployment connects terrestrial facilities rather than offshore data centers, it demonstrates that APN technology can support high-capacity, predictable connectivity across significant distances.  

For future offshore applications, this provides confidence that subsea fiber can support demanding digital workloads while maintaining stable performance. It also shows how APNs could provide the connectivity between remote offshore infrastructure and onshore facilities. 

Offshore: To what extent can APNs mitigate the latency challenge, and what limitations remain? 

Rodschat: For offshore data centers, APNs can help create the high-performance connectivity needed to integrate remote computing infrastructure with the wider digital ecosystem. Offshore data centers will need to function as an integral part of land-based infrastructure and, therefore, will need to leverage the benefits of APNs to scale across applications.

By reducing network processing and overhead, APNs can support more responsive and predictable connections between offshore facilities, onshore infrastructure and users. This could make offshore locations more practical for cloud, AI and other data-intensive applications, particularly where consistent network performance is important. 

APNs can also help make better use of existing subsea fiber infrastructure, allowing operators to improve network performance through upgrades to optical switching and terminal equipment. The distance between an offshore data center and terrestrial infrastructure will require optimized optical interfaces to deliver the best possible energy efficiency and throughput. APNs can support this requirement by using high-performance optical signals across both proprietary and open interfaces. For instance, Ciena’s WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) is built to align with IOWN APN principles and best practices, supporting high-performance, energy-efficient optical transport across both proprietary and open networking environments. This combination of efficient connectivity and predictable performance could help address some of the networking challenges associated with locating data centers offshore.

Offshore: What are the biggest challenges before offshore data centers can become commercially viable? 

Rodschat: The biggest hurdles extend beyond the technology itself. Construction and operational costs will be important in determining whether offshore data centers can deliver a compelling commercial proposition compared with established onshore infrastructure. 

Operators will also need to consider how these facilities can be built and managed effectively in an offshore environment. Regulation is another significant consideration, with projects requiring appropriate frameworks and approvals before they can operate at scale. 

The need to interwork with existing service provider and hyperscale networks on the terrestrial connection to any offshore data center also presents an opportunity to use the APN Domain Interconnect (ADI) approach, enabling end-to-end photonic services to transit multiple operators or multiple photonic vendor systems.

Ultimately, the business case needs to demonstrate that the benefits of locating computing infrastructure offshore to justify the additional complexity and investment involved. 

Addressing these challenges will require close collaboration across the industry and with regulators. As the technology and operating models develop, offshore data centers could become a practical option for expanding digital infrastructure in locations where they can offer a clear commercial advantage.