[Ottawa, ON | March 5, 2026]
CANARIE, NORDUnet, and SURF, National Research and Education Network (NREN) partners in Canada, the European Nordic, and the Netherlands, today announced a major upgrade to the transatlantic connection between Montreal and Amsterdam — a significant enhancement to the performance, resilience, and flexibility of the global research and education (R&E) network that underpins dataintensive science and international collaboration.
The newly deployed 400 gigabit per second (400G) link is anchored at MOXY, Canada’s Global Exchange Point for R&E in Montreal, and at NetherLight, the Dutch Global Exchange Point in Amsterdam. The Exchange points serve as vital landing points for European–North American R&E traffic, providing an open, high-capacity environment where global R&E networks interconnect to advance large-scale scientific discovery.
Why 400G Matters
Today’s upgrade reflects both the scale and urgency of modern science. Computational research, high‑energy physics, astronomy, climate modelling, biomedical research, and other data‑intensive fields are generating unprecedented volumes of information. In practical terms, with a 400G connection upgrade over the previous 100G connection:
- Physicists can transmit larger datasets from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), allowing for faster observations and resulting research.
- Astronomy researchers alone are expected to use a steady 100 gigabits per second of the connection to receive observational data from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory, delivered nearly in real time for analysis and discovery.
To sustain this growth, CANARIE and its international partners recognized the need to modernize transatlantic pathways.
Strengthening a Core Route for Global Research
The Montreal–Amsterdam route has been an example of international research connectivity partnerships since 2017. Previously operating at 100G, it has supported activities under the Advanced North Atlantic (ANA) collaboration and served as a key link between CANARIE, NORDUnet, SURF, and their global partners.
By upgrading the Montreal–Amsterdam circuit to 400G, the partners ensure continued support for researchers who depend on fast, reliable access to global datasets, instruments, and collaborators.
“This expansion of capacity along the Montreal–Amsterdam corridor strengthens a critical route in global research networking,” says Mark Wolff, Chief Technology Officer, CANARIE. “By working closely with NORDUnet and SURF, we’re ensuring that Canadian and international researchers can move the massive datasets that power discovery, innovation, and scientific breakthroughs.”
NORDUnet and SURF echoed the importance of collaboration in providing resilient, scalable infrastructure that can keep pace with the accelerating speed of scientific innovation.
“At NORDUnet, our network strategy commits us to maintaining a global peering fabric with unrestricted capacity and built-in diversity — ensuring that we are never dependent on a single provider, infrastructure, or country,” says Lars Lange Bjørn, Head of Network Engineering at NORDUnet. “Through our collaboration with CANARIE and SURF, we can realise that ambition across the Atlantic. The federated ANA system provides a level of resilience and scale we could not achieve alone and clearly demonstrates the strength of global NREN collaboration. Contributing the Amsterdam–Montreal link to this shared infrastructure is important for NORDUnet and for the researchers we serve.”
“Expanding to 400G on the Amsterdam–Montreal route is something I’m super proud of and loved working on with the partners from CANARIE and NORDUnet,” says Karin Wessel, PM International Connectivity & NetherLight at SURF. “While most transatlantic R&E links land in the U.S., our dedicated path linking NetherLight directly to MOXY provides the geographical diversity that’s essential for a robust global network. Strengthening the ANA collaboration is vital — it’s partnerships like these that ensure the global research community, including data-intensive projects like the LHC and SKA, keeps a high-performance, reliable path to discovery.”
A Foundation for the Next Generation of Global Science
The 400G upgrade marks a major milestone in longstanding transatlantic collaboration and sets the stage for continued growth. As science becomes increasingly data driven, distributed, and globally interdependent, this expanded capacity ensures that researchers can continue to push the boundaries of discovery.
For more information, please contact:
Lesley McElroy
Director, Communications
CANARIE
[email protected]