What do you see as the key trends in communications and data centres in Latvia and the Baltic region right now? 

Several different trends are driving the market, with some of the key ones being the need for security and for redundancy in terms of both electricity and connectivity. These considerations are especially important given the conflict happening in Eastern Europe right now, and are also priorities for Latvia State Radio and Television Center [LVRTC].

In addition, we’re seeing major digital transformation, with the adoption of cloud and AI technology. At the same time, sustainability is a major concern and a big focus for data centre and IT infrastructure operators, with the need for the industry to lower its carbon footprint.

What opportunities and challenges do you see in the region? 

One of the big opportunities is in offering regional connectivity. At LVRTC, we have a colocation point that’s the largest in the Baltics, in Latvian capital Riga – namely the Riga TV tower, which serves as a basis for tier-2 and tier-3 data centre services.

We also offer high-capacity connections across Latvia and to over 50 other countries, including a 410km subsea and land link to Stockholm in Sweden – with links between LVRTC’s two high-availability data centres in Riga and guaranteed bandwidth up to 100Gbps. In addition, we have colocation points every 100km in Latvia.

Challenges include energy availability and prices, as well as security issues. However, many challenges are also opportunities, as the strong need for cybersecurity means we have the chance to provide customers with the secure, critical infrastructure they need.

Can you explain a bit about LVRTC’s past evolution from a TV and radio broadcaster into also providing communications, data and cybersecurity services?

We’re now just over 100 years old and have been innovators from the very beginning, when we were one of the first organisations in the region to provide live radio and TV broadcasting.

Later, as we rolled out dark fibre to connect our towers and freed up physical space due to advances in technology that reduced the size of tower infrastructure, it made sense to move into data centres in areas where we had more room, as well as transmission services.

We’re pioneers in technology, having built an open-infrastructure ecosystem around the Baltic Sea. We’ve also continued to innovate when it comes to our network, services and areas like cybersecurity, which has become one of our top priorities.

How is the company innovating in cybersecurity?

We’ve been developing quantum security infrastructure, having run a quantum key distribution [QKD] project co-funded by the EU over the past three years aimed at deploying a national backbone based on the technology. We’ve had success with the tests and want to provide this as a solution for clients within the next year.

This shows our commitment to security, recognising that there’s a long adoption phase for technologies like QKD, and we want to be ready at the moment when the big developments are happening in quantum computing. This can ultimately aid secure data transmission in crucial sectors like finance and healthcare long-term.

It also adds to the cybersecurity technologies we already offer like firewalls and DDoS protection, while we have a Security Operations Center offering 24/7 support to customers as well – overall providing a highly robust portfolio to protect all kinds of players.

How is LVRTC helping to further drive the Latvian and Baltic communications and data markets?

We’re planning to add more infrastructure to meet upcoming needs for redundancy and capacity. Over the next three years, we plan to roll out several sections of optical fibre, while we aim to have a second dark fibre transit route running through the country from Estonia to Lithuania by 2028. That will provide a second independent and, for now, shortest route through the country.

On top of that, we’re aiming to open another data centre in 2027 around 140km from Riga. Again showing our push for innovation, unlike many other Baltic data centres, this will be outside the main metropolis areas in a rural location. It will provide the same latency and redundancy as our data centres in Riga, but with a higher level of security.

Meanwhile, we have 70% of the energy in our data centres coming from renewables at the moment and are aiming to push towards 100% by 2030. This puts us ahead of the game compared with many European providers and boosts our position as a highly attractive partner for players in the market, helping us create a hub in the region that meets the needs of the future.