Nokia outlines role of subsea fiber in AI and cloud

Nokia outlined the role of fiber-optic networks in enabling global Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure and the expansion of cloud services, stating that access to cloud-based AI platforms depended on efficient, low-latency connectivity to data centers.

Fiber-optic systems form the backbone of digital activity, carrying real-time financial transactions, mission-critical enterprise traffic, defense systems, entertainment, and personal communications, and they continued to determine who could reach cloud-based AI services with predictable performance.

The briefing noted that more than 570 subsea cables carried over 99% of international traffic and that over 11,000 data centers, including more than one thousand hyperscale facilities, now constituted core nodes generating on the order of thousands of petabytes of Wide Area Network (WAN) traffic daily; it also described a shift toward dense, high-capacity flows engineered between data centers rather than primarily between PoPs and carrier hotels.

The materials described unified optical platforms and specific capabilities: Nokia’s 1830 Global Express portfolio as a single DCI-optimized solution for transponders, open optical line systems, and submarine line terminal equipment; support for 800 Gigabit Ethernet using Probabilistic Constellation Shaping, Nyquist filtering, and continuous baud rate tuning; integrated OLS functions including ROADM-based wavelength switching, Adaptive Simulation Engine (ASE) or CW idler insertion, and optical channel monitoring; and operational features such as constant-power ILAs, integrated OTDR, and optical protection schemes that simplified planning, training, sparing, deployment, and lifecycle management.

“Advancing connectivity for the AI supercycle” is more than a tagline; it captures two simultaneous imperatives: scaling networks for performance, efficiency, and sustainability while extending those networks to every region and community, Nokia said.

The briefing described plans for new subsea systems such as Medusa, the Bangladesh Private Cable System, and a Jakarta–Singapore route, said multiple new subsea cable build outs had entered planning and deployment, said subsea bandwidth demand was expected to grow at roughly 30% per year, and said future advances in chromatic dispersion tolerance were expected to extend pluggable coherent optics to trans-Atlantic routes.