News

The supported projects include providing broadband on rural Scottish rail lines and powering agricultural sensors on commercial farms

With the explosion of interest in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services in recent years, the UK government is racing to secure the country’s place as a space innovator.

Between 2024 and 2025, the UK government said it catalysed £2.2 billion in investment and revenue for the UK space sector, a move it said was crucial to ensuring a sovereign and competitive satellite industry.

Today, the UK Space Agency has announced a further £13 million in funding for a range of UK-based satellite initiatives, aiming to boost the sector’s development and deliver economic benefits across the country. These 16 projects selected for support cover a wide range of topics, from technical R&D work to pilot connectivity projects in rural locations.

The largest tranche of the funding – £2.1 million – is going to the STARS project by Exobotics Ltd, which aims to develop “next-generation optical communications capability designed to provide ultra-fast, resilient and near real-time connectivity for satellite operators”. This will take the form of a satellite relay network, used to rapidly transmit mission-critical data.

Other large tranches are being given to Project Optimus (£1.845 million), a laser communications system that can transmit data between satellites and the ground at over 100 Gbps; Airbus’s Theia project (£1.5 million), which aims to make satellite processor functions reprogrammable and customisable while still in orbit; and the QUAKES (Quick Universal Array for Ka-band, E-band, and S-band Earth Stations) project (£1.71 million) from Orbital Astronautics Ltd, which is developing a compact, portable ground station that can be rapidly deployed and connect to multiple satellites at once.

Some of the smaller grants were given to projects with far more tangible benefits for UK citizens. CGI’s SODOR (Satellites for Digitalisation of Railways) project, for example, has been given £428,000 to fit a ScotRail train West Highland Line with satellite communications equipment, providing reliable broadband in one of the UK’s most remote rail corridors.

Additionally, the Gardens, Allotments and Urban Farming Facilitator (GAUFF) Sensor project (£199,000) from agricultural connectivity specialist Farmer Charlie will support the development of satellite-linked agricultural sensors that are designed to work in locations where terrestrial connectivity is poor.

“By combining affordable sensors with satellite connectivity, we are making it easier for growers to make informed decisions, improve productivity and farm more sustainably anywhere in the UK,” said Betty Bonnardel MBE, CEO of Farmer Charlie.

All of these projects will be delivered through the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Advanced Research in Telecommunication Systems (ARTES) programme, which is supported by the UK Space Agency, itself part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

“This investment shows how innovations in the UK’s satellite sector can improve lives, with better connectivity delivering internet access for more train journeys, and smarter farming,” said Space Minister Liz Lloyd. “By backing brilliant British companies, we are not only furthering our status as one of the world’s leading space powers, but creating high-quality jobs and new opportunities across the UK.”

A complete breakdown of the funding commitment to each of the 16 projects is available here.

Satellites are increasingly being recognised as critical part of the UK’s telecommunications infrastructure. According to a government fact sheet from 2024 around 18% of the UK’s GDP (£454 billion) is reliant on satellite connectivity

Is the UK doing enough to support rural connectivity? Join the discussion at Connected Britain 2026, the UK’s largest digital economy event

Also in the news
Shared Rural Network rollout extends to UK national parks with over 150 4G masts live
Vodafone touts latest attempt to bridge the UK’s digital divide
Virgin Media O2 cuts 5,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions

Contributed Article

by Andrian Visnevschi, CEO and CTO of ITcare

At 03:00 next Sunday, someone will be on shift, responsible for your network. It is worth asking who that actually is, and whether they can read a BGP table or only acknowledge an alarm. For a growing number of UK fibre operators, the honest answer is the second one, and for 128 of the 168 hours in a week there may be no answer at all. 

That question used to be survivable, because the market rewarded building, but that era is closing. Ofcom puts full fibre at more than three-quarters of UK premises, and AlixPartners estimates nearly half of UK fibre operators must refinance by the end of 2026, at rates far above what they borrowed at. Lenders no longer fund premises passed. They fund take-up, revenue and cost discipline. The sorting criterion has moved from how much network you built to how well you run it. 

The gap every operations lead already knows about 

Most operations leaders at altnets know exactly where their gaps are, overnight coverage is thin, the inventory has drifted, the change process depends on one person being awake. What they lack is the headcount economics to fix it. 

Covering one 24/7 seat sounds like simple arithmetic, 168 hours against 40-hour weeks suggests five engineers. Anyone who has built a rota knows that people need rest after nights, and someone is always on leave, off sick or working on their notice. A sustainable team takes six engineers, or five plus a lead, and it cannot be six juniors because a seat that can resolve incidents at 03:00, not just acknowledge them, needs a mix of first-line and senior engineers, which in the UK means salaries from around £33,000 to £50,000 and beyond, per public salary data. That puts the team behind that one seat at roughly £250,000 a year in base pay, and £350,000 or more with employer costs, shift premiums, recruitment, training and tooling. All of it buys one person watching at any given moment. In a consolidating market, closing this gap by hiring is the most expensive answer, competing for the same scarce engineers everyone else is chasing. 

What we find inside real networks 

ITcare runs managed NOC and network engineering for ISPs, data centre operators and hosting providers across North America and Europe. When we take over or extend an operator’s network operations, the pattern is consistent, the inventory is wrong in ways nobody has quantified, monitoring has either no visibility or produces a ton of alarms nobody has triaged in months, and the topology lives in one senior engineer’s head. None of this reflects badly on the teams involved. It reflects an operations function built during the build era, now carrying an operate era load it was never staffed for. 

The specialist model exists for exactly this, a dedicated team of service provider engineers takes the 24/7 load, the change discipline and the escalations, working as a standalone team or an extension of the operator’s own team, and usually for less than what staffing a single 24/7 seat in-house would cost. The in-house engineers stop firefighting and go back to the work that grows the business. 

The AI claim, stated honestly 

Every stand at Connected Britain will say AI this year, so let me say it precisely. We build and operate HORA, an AI network operations platform, and we ran it inside our own NOC, breaking things in our own lab, before any customer touched it. That made us conservative in a specific way. 

AI earns its keep on the read side. HORA brings metrics, logs, flows, BGP state, discovered topology and the source of truth into one place, and an AI engineer correlates across all of it to get a human to root cause in minutes. That is why a lean team can operate more network, and why, after a merger leaves two networks and two half-accurate inventories, automated discovery turns an integration plan into an integration. The write side is different. We keep AI off it by architecture, it proposes, a human approves, and what touches a device is deterministic automation a person wrote and can audit. Any AI pitch that skips this distinction is selling you the demo. 

HORA correlating live network state to root cause.

The operate era 

The strategic question for every operator heading into the autumn is not how much network you have, but whether the way it is operated would survive due diligence. If the honest answer is no, that is fixable, and it costs less than you think. 

We will be at Connected Britain on 9 and 10 September, stand 140. Bring us your hardest operational problem, the inventory nobody trusts, the alarm queue nobody reads, and we will tell you on the spot how we would approach it. To set up a meeting ahead of the event, write to andrian.visnevschi@itcare.net. 

Andrian Visnevschi is CEO and CTO of ITcare and holds JNCIE-SP #2975. ITcare runs managed NOC and network engineering for ISPs, data centre operators and hosting providers worldwide, and builds HORA, an AI network operations platform.  

Contributed Article

Provided by: Belden

For over a decade, Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) has been the go-to metric for evaluating data center efficiency. As artificial intelligence (AI) workloads scale rapidly, however, relying so heavily on PUE has run into a problem.

Unfortunately, PUE’s facility-wide perspective provides little insight into how efficiently an AI workload is being executed. As AI workloads continue to demand growing amounts of power, the data center industry is pivoting to a more granular metric – energy per inference.

Optimizing for this metric requires scrutinizing every layer of the hardware stack. While GPUs and advanced cooling systems receive significant attention, the optical interconnects that move data within clusters are quickly becoming a strategic concern.

Why the interconnect layer matters for AI power efficiency

In legacy data centers, the power draw of a single transceiver has always been a topic of importance, but less so than today. Modern AI fabrics have changed the conversation.

A high-performance GPU server can rely on ten or more optical transceivers for communication across spine, leaf, and server switch architectures. As data rates shift upward to 800G and 1.6T, the energy cost of moving bits begins to rival the cost of processing them. At this scale, optical design choices begin to influence energy per inference in a measurable way.

How Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO) Work

Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO) simplify the transceiver by removing the most power-intensive parts – the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and Clock Data Recovery (CDR). In standard full re-timed optics (FRO), the DSP alone can account for roughly 40% of total optic power consumption.

Instead, LPO shifts signal conditioning responsibilities to the host switch silicon, specifically the SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer). This handoff results in a leaner optical module that slashes the power draw per 800G link from around 13W-16W to 7W-9W. Lower transceiver power means less heat generated at the switch faceplate. Less heat means reduced cooling demand across the room and less pressure on HVAC systems.

Additionally, by bypassing the DSP processing cycle, LPO reduces latency from around 100ns to less than 10ns. That not only improves the responsiveness of distributed AI training and inference but also permits infrastructure to deliver more useful compute work per watt-hour.

Crucially, LPO modules interoperate with standard FRO, allowing operators to maintain hybrid environments and pursue a phased transition within the same network fabric.

Key technical considerations for DSP-less architectures

Despite the immense benefits of LPO technology, its successful deployment depends on a few, key hardware conditions.

1. Host platform dependency: Because the optic no longer carries a DSP, the host switch must do more. That means stronger SerDes performance is essential. Many early deployments are associated with newer switch platforms such as those built around Tomahawk 5-class architectures.
2. Distance and signal integrity: Without re-timing inside the optic, LPO is generally better suited to short-reach links, often under 500 meters. Additionally, LPO can be less forgiving of signal deterioration introduced by cable quality or board layout variations.

A roadmap to 1.6T and sustainable growth

As AI clusters move toward 1.6T interconnect speeds, pressure to improve efficiency will continue to rise. A growing number of industry analysts see LPO as a practical near-term deployment solution that will enjoy significant, consistent growth through 2033.

In the AI era, improving energy per inference means looking beyond the GPU and examining every watt consumed across the network path. Linear Pluggable Optics are not a universal replacement for traditional re-timed modules. But in short-reach, high-density AI environments, they can play an important role in reducing power draw, lowering thermal load, and improving compute efficiency. For those building at scale, the optical layer is no longer a background consideration. It is now the next fundamental frontier in the quest for more sustainable AI.

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Press Release

Over 150 4G mast upgrades are now live across the UK’s national parks, including the Yorkshire Dales and Eryri, Snowdonia, as part of the continued rollout of the Shared Rural Network.

The latest upgrade provides extended 4G coverage across over 5,684 square kilometres, in areas that previously only had access to EE coverage, or none at all.

 The government-funded 4G mast upgrades are delivered through existing infrastructure and bring 4G coverage from EE, Virgin Media 02, and Vodafone and ThreeUK in order to bolster connectivity in rural areas.

The rollout is intended to support accessing online public services, working more flexibly from home, running payments and bookings for local firms, and for holidaymakers accessing location data or calling for emergency assistance.

Mike Hellers, Product Development Manager at the London Internet Exchange, commented: “Strengthening connectivity in rural areas is a key aspect of the UK’s growth ambition, providing greater access to digital services, AI tools and streaming in hard-to-reach locations like the Yorkshire Dales and Eryri.”

“As more communities gain access to reliable 4G coverage through the Shared Rural Network, efficient traffic exchange and keeping data as local as possible will become increasingly important in delivering the low-latency, resilient services people expect. Continued investment across the wider internet ecosystem will be essential to support growing demand and maximise the benefits of expanded mobile connectivity.”

42 Shared Rural Network sites are now active across the UK’s national parks, including 25 sites in England covering areas such as the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, 16 sites in Wales including Eryri, and 1 site in Scotland in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs.

Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of the Digital Poverty Alliance, commented: “Connectivity continues to get taken for granted across the UK despite being something we all rely on so heavily. Rural communities, in particular, have long faced challenges as essential digital services such as healthcare, banking and education shift online, also having a knock-on impact on wider employment and access opportunities.

“The government’s latest expansion of the Shared Rural Network rollout is an important step in recognising the importance of reliable mobile and internet access to keep people connected in remote areas. Connectivity is a key component of digital inclusion, and the next step is ensuring people in Yorkshire have affordable and suitable devices for work and school, alongside the digital skills to use them effectively. These government initiatives set the tone for inclusivity in the UK’s regions.”

The government has outlined that the Shared Rural Network programme has hit its rollout objective of extending 4G coverage to 95 per cent of the UK landmass a year ahead of schedule.

Minister of State for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Ian Murray, said: “You should be able to switch off in the countryside without being cut off from the help and services you need.”

“These 150 masts are helping change that – giving walkers, visitors and rural communities better access to signal when they are checking a route, contacting family, running a business or calling for help.”

News

Vodafone says it’s using its £11bn UK network expansion to help people unlock career and personal goals

Telecom operator Vodafone is leveraging its £11 billion UK network investment to bridge the country’s digital opportunity gap, according to an announcement last Thursday by the firm.

The company says more than half (55%) of Britons say digital tools make it easier to find career and personal opportunities, with 42% stating improved mobile connectivity has directly helped them achieve key goals.

To support digital inclusion, Vodafone opened an “Opportunity Hub” on 6 August. The initiative sits alongside the group’s infrastructure expansion, which includes eliminating 16,500 square kilometres of mobile not-spots to support public ambitions.

The research revealed that 85% of Britons are pursuing a major life goal but wait an average of two years before acting, Vodafone said. Meanwhile, financial constraints (22%) and unreliable connectivity were cited as key hurdles, particularly for prospective entrepreneurs.

“Britain isn’t short of ambition. The challenge is turning ambition into action,” a Vodafone spokesperson said, noting that access to reliable network coverage remains vital to helping individuals seize new opportunities.

Some AI tools assisted in the crafting of this report.

News

How Virgin Media O2 is cutting network emissions with hardware circularity and reuse

Virgin Media O2 has avoided 5,262 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over a decade through a network equipment circularity programme with TXO, equivalent to taking 1,100 cars off the road for a year, the company says.

The initiative avoided 4,575 tonnes by refurbishing and reselling infrastructure like switches and routers, with a further 687 tonnes saved by purchasing secondary-market replacement gear. Savings were calculated via TXO’s Carbon Calculator, developed alongside the Carbon Trust, Virgin Media O2 announced August 11.

Additionally, TXO also recycled over 690 tonnes of end-of-life hardware, with steel, aluminum, and copper making up nearly 60% of recovered materials. The domestic processing supports Virgin Media O2’s target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040, according to the company.

“This partnership shows that circularity can deliver measurable carbon savings, reduce waste, recover valuable materials and create commercial return,” said TXO Chief Product and Asset Recovery Officer David Evans.

Some AI tools assisted in the crafting of this report.

Summit 2026

Here’s why eyes will be on the Multifamily Town Hall during Broadband Communities Summit in Houston on August 26, sponsored by AT&T Connected Communities.

The Multifamily Town Hall at 11:30 a.m. on August 26 will be one to watch, according to Valerie Sargent.

Sargent, who serves as a multifamily correspondent and advisor for Broadband Communities Summit, said the discussions during the Multifamily Town Hall can often foreshadow and influence later policy discussions and legal leader panels during the Summit’s multifamily track.

This year, the town hall discussion will be moderated by Matt Ames, a partner at law firm Hubacher Ames & Taylor.

Ames will oversee a discussion including Elizabeth Parks, the president and CMO of Parks Associates, and Dom Beveridge, the founder of 20 for 20.

Sargent said Parks will share some of the incredible research and statistics uncovered during the past year regarding industry trends.

Specifically, Parks and Beveridge will dive into shared challenges faced by owners, operators, and partners working within the rental housing industry.

“I think that’s really where people get some good information to take back,” she said.

Click here to listen to the discussion with Valerie Sargent on Apple Podcasts

Attendees can walk away with a fresh update about what residents want and what the multifamily industry is focused on right now, Sargent added.

“Some of the most important information that our owners need”

Regarding the rest of the multifamily track, which stretches across two days in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Sargent said she’s also excited for the legal sessions.

“I think it’s probably some of the most important information that our owners need,” she said.

The legal leaders panel on August 27, “Navigating Broadband Regulation Without Creating Operational Chaos” sponsored by DIRECTV, will dive into compliance risks, unintended consequences, and legal blind spots.

The panel, moderated by Linda Willey, VP of business services for Camden Property Trust, will focus on how to anticipate regulatory change without disrupting operations.

Joining Willey on stage will be Kate Luthy of AT&T (Assistant VP, Senior Legal), Sue Weiske of Spectrum Community Solutions (VP & Assoc. General Counsel), Ryan Graney, an attorney with the law firm Davis Craig, and Art Hubacher, a managing member with the law firm Hubacher Ames & Taylor.

To view the full multifamily track for Broadband Communities 2026, along with the rest of the agenda, visit the event’s website or register here to get tickets!

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HONG KONG & BERN, August 4th, 2026 – VOX Solutions, a leading provider of comprehensive A2P voice and messaging monetisation solutions, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Comfone, a prominent global telecommunications services provider. This strategic channel partnership will help Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) worldwide control, protect, and monetise their international Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS traffic. 

This collaboration brings together VOX Solutions’ managed VOX360 Monetisation Solution with Comfone’s extensive industry expertise and global ecosystem. Together, both companies are committed to safeguarding mobile communication against the growing threats of unsolicited traffic, grey routes, and revenue leakage. 

The VOX360 platform, a market-leading solution, integrates advanced anti-fraud capabilities including flash call authentication and A2P SMS monetisation tools. Deployed within the operator’s own network environment and operated as a fully managed service, the platform provides advanced monitoring, filtering, analytics, and fraud-prevention capabilities. By centralising international A2P traffic through authorised gateways, VOX360 ensures full visibility of all traffic flows, eliminates bypass routes, and enables proper commercial monetisation of messaging traffic. The service includes 24/7 monitoring, traffic analytics, market intelligence, and dedicated technical support. 

Pedro Sebastião, Director of Partnerships at Comfone, commented: 

“Partnering with VOX Solutions is a natural extension of the Comfone Partnership Program. A2P SMS monetisation is a critical priority for mobile operators worldwide, and VOX Solutions’ track record in delivering measurable results through their AI-powered platform makes them an ideal partner. This collaboration enables us to offer our customers a best-in-class, trusted solution that protects revenues and strengthens network integrity.” 

VOX360 stands as an industry awarded platform capable of mitigating flash calls as part of a comprehensive anti-fraud solution for A2P voice and SMS traffic. This ensures that operators partnering through the Comfone channel remain protected from flash call fraud while maximising service quality and legitimate messaging revenues. 

Teodor Magureanu, Chief Business Development Officer at VOX Solutions, added: 

“Our mission is to support mobile operators in driving sustainable revenue growth and fostering innovation. We are happy to enter this partnership as we know Comfone is a company with a similar mindset – be a valuable partner to mobile operators. Hence, this global partnership is about trust and value for the ecosystem. By combining our VOX360 platform with Comfone’s extensive network, we can accelerate our efforts to help MNOs worldwide secure and monetise their A2P messaging traffic, contributing to their business success while enhancing communication security globally.” 

VOX Solutions continues to lead the market with its end-to-end A2P voice and messaging monetisation offerings. With a proven track record of success, the VOX360 platform has been deployed by numerous top-tier mobile operators worldwide. Looking forward, this partnership with Comfone marks another milestone in VOX Solutions’ commitment to empowering telecom operators with cutting-edge technology, strategic insights, and unparalleled support to navigate the evolving industry landscape. 

About VOX Solutions 

VOX Solutions is a leading TelcoTech company dedicated to empowering Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), carriers, aggregators, and enterprises worldwide by providing innovative solutions to effectively monetise their assets. We provide cutting-edge solutions that enable our partners to unlock new revenue streams by maximising the value of their existing assets. Leveraging advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Advertising Technology (AdTech), advanced analytics, and seamless authentication, we help transform telecommunications businesses into high-performing, revenue-generating ecosystems. 

http://www.voxsolutions.co 

About Comfone 

Headquartered in Bern, Switzerland, Comfone is fully independent, privately owned, and financially stable with no affiliation to any operator groups. With over 28 years of industry expertise and a strong tradition of Swiss quality, Comfone has proven track record of delivering robust and scalable roaming and interworking services. We serve more than 700 customers across over 200 countries and territories, including MNOs, MVNOs, SMS A2P Providers, IoT/ M2M Solution Providers, and a range of new operators entering telecommunications market. 

Comfone Solutions Value Propositions  

• Global customer reach, presence and georedundant infrastructure in all continents  

• 24/7 multilingual, personal and dynamic support from experienced roaming professionals. Workforce representing 50 nationalities and 45 languages  

• A GSMA Associate Member since 1999, Comfone actively participates in GSMA Working Groups and follows all GSMA standards   

• For over a decade, Comfone has been recognized as a leading global provider of roaming services in key areas such as Hub, IPX, Data Clearing, and Financial Clearing. ROCCO top rankings since 2013  

We focus on long-term partnerships, operational excellence, and a customer-oriented approach. This ensures that our solutions are not only compliant but aligned with the latest industry developments and best practices to help operators developing new solutions in existing and emerging technologies and protocols such as VoLTE, 5G NSA, 5G SA, BCE, and NB-IoT.  

www.comfone.com 

Partner Article

On August 4, China Tower and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. officially unveiled a new tunnel waveguide product: TunnelStar at the China Tower Industrial Park. Tailored for high-value tunnel scenarios, the innovative solution features compact size, lower costs and superior user experience, injecting new momentum into network quality improvement and brand value enhancement for telecom operators.

Senior executives from China Tower and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. attended the launch ceremony.

According to the officials present, China’s rail transit tunnel scale has maintained steady growth, with the national operational subway mileage exceeding 10,000 kilometers and the mileage of operational railway tunnels surpassing 25,000 kilometers. Tunnel scenarios have long been plagued by industry pain points, including limited installation space, complex on-site construction conditions and difficult renovation coordination. Meanwhile, as mobile communication networks accelerate the iteration toward 5G-A, communication frequency bands and spectrum bandwidth continue to expand. Driven by booming applications such as AI and live streaming, user demand for uplink services keeps rising, highlighting the weaknesses of uplink coverage and putting forward more stringent technical requirements for tunnel indoor distribution and signal coverage systems.

Against this backdrop, China Tower and Huawei have carried out in-depth technical cooperation. Combining the propagation characteristics of radio waves in tunnels, the two parties have jointly developed the TunnelStar, breaking through the technical bottlenecks restricting tunnel network coverage. Equipped with a specially designed excitation source to reshape electromagnetic field distribution, the product enables more uniform wireless signal coverage in tunnels and maximizes overall coverage performance.

Compared with traditional antenna solutions, the innovative TunnelStar boosts edge coverage level by more than 10dB and improves user experience speed by over 40%. It supports a 9dB gain amplification for uplink links, delivering a 20% increase in uplink speed to meet the demand for high-capacity uplink data services. In addition, the product supports low-cost evolution toward 6G, enabling smooth transition for new frequency band applications. As a full-band and full-bandwidth solution, it empowers China Tower to leverage its unified planning and construction advantages, helping telecom operators solve key industry challenges including high-capacity uplink and high-frequency network evolution in tunnels, difficult leaky cable construction and poor antenna coverage effects.

The TunnelStar solution has completed pilot tests for 3.5G and 4.9G frequency bands in Wuhan and Guangzhou respectively. The test results show significant improvements in coverage performance and deployment efficiency, which are highly consistent with the design targets.

TunnelStar blazes a new trail for upgrading tunnel network experience. It effectively breaks the coverage bottlenecks in extreme tunnel scenarios, greatly improving user experience and satisfaction, and setting a benchmark for ultimate mobile network coverage.

Looking ahead, the two sides will further integrate China Tower’s advantages in integrated overall planning, co-construction and project implementation with Huawei’s cutting-edge communication R&D capabilities. Both parties will continue to iterate and upgrade series of in-depth tunnel coverage technologies and solutions, comprehensively optimize the digital travel experience for the public, and empower a better digital life for all.

News

Prysmian’s deal with Molex is expected to create hundreds of jobs in the United States as the company expands optical fibre output.

Edited by Brad Randall, Broadband Communities

Cable manufacturer Prysmian has secured a 10-year deal worth up to 5.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) with electronics firm Molex to supply high-density optical fibre for artificial intelligence data centers.

The agreement, announced July 20, includes an upfront payment of 550 million euros. Additionally, it will move Prysmian into the internal data center wiring market to feed surging demand from cloud and AI infrastructure providers, the company says.

To fulfill the deal, the Italian company plans to invest 1.25 billion euros by 2031 to expand its manufacturing footprint, more than doubling its optical fibre output in the United States. The expansion is expected to create 1,000 global jobs, including 600 in the U.S.

Prysmian CEO Massimo Battaini called the agreement a “transformative moment” for the company’s digital unit as tech firms racing to build out AI clusters drive structural upgrades to fibre networks.

Some AI tools also assisted in the crafting of this report.

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