The Port of Marseille is the digital gateway linking Europe to the rest of the world. It is the attachment point for several submarine cables that allow data distribution and interconnectivity. This makes Marseille the 7th world internet hub today. These data are stored, processed and exchanged using data center built in recent years in the port of Marseille.
Gate 4 of the port of Marseille, two gigantic blocks face the harbor. Buildings with 16 megawatts of electrical power each, the equivalent of a city of 25,000 inhabitants.
“ Historically, ports transported goods and people. Today, they also transport data. And, to transport them to the port of Marseilles, you need data center which interconnect with submarine telecommunications cables, which interconnect Marseille with Africa, the Middle East, India. Obviously, behind, we have terrestrial cables, which will leave through France, to Paris, then in Germany, in Frankfurt. They go everywhere to irrigate “explains Fabrice Coquio, Managing Director of Interxion France, European leader in data centers., whose infrastructure it manages.
Its clients are individuals, public services and businesses, including digital giants. It is in fact from Marseille that all VOD is distributed: video on demand in Europe.
” We send a data packet from Marseille to Singapore in 115 milliseconds, 0.11 seconds! I give an example : you go from here, you make an Instagram post for your friends in Singapore or Tokyo or Bombay, who are going to want to look at your page, well, this is where they’re going to come and get the data,” he tells us.
To enter the lair of data center, you have to go through several security gates. To ensure that a visitor, whose badge has been identified, does not enter with someone in his arms, he is weighed.
Sovereign company data or even our own personal data are hosted in these uniform rooms. Dozens of metal cabinets are stored there. Fabrice Coquio explains:
“Our sensors will constantly identify the electricity consumption of all our customers, which varies during the day. For example, for an insurance company, the machines are used until 6 p.m., people leave the office, consumption drops. But they arrive home, they watch Netflix or Canal+, and consumption goes up. To give you an idea, the little yellow wire that looks like spaghetti is a fiber optic jumper, which can pass 400 gigs, or 4,000 times the capacity of a fiber at home.
In early 2024, a Bombay-Marseille submarine cable will be commissioned. The 2Africa cable imagined by Facebook will also be connected shortly. A small revolution according to Fabrice Coquio.
“It’s as if before we had a garden hose, and now we have a pipe line with a diameter of two meters. So a lot more data goes through, which lowers the cost of each telecom flow. Services that were not available, for example for Tanzania, for Madagascar, or for Egypt, become accessible. It is for this reason that it is said that this cable will disrupt internet connectivity and digital exchanges with Africa, because it opens up capacities, and above all it opens up a dynamic of local development in Africa. “.
Problem for the municipality, these data center generate few jobs. The benefits are too low for the city according to Sébastien Barles, deputy mayor in charge of ecological transition.
“ These dates take valuable land for the city, they consume energy and pay very little tax. We would like these dates can participate in the financing of major ecological transitions at the level of the city of Marseille. The data that is stored in these data center are extremely valuable. It is raw material, it is not vulgar inert goods. It is raw material that must be valued as such and taxed as such “, protests Sébastien Barles.
Energy is scarce and these data center Marseilles consume a lot, which poses a problem for the port, explains the deputy mayor. They compete with a power supply project for cruise ships and ferries, planned for the neighboring quays.