Enterprise Network Infrastructure: Design, Performance & Security

Epsilon, Megaport expand North American network reach

Epsilon Telecommunications, a global connectivity provider offering network, cloud, and colocation services, and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) provider Megaport have partnered to expand Epsilon’s network footprint in North America. The partnership allows customers to access Megaport’s compute, network, and storage infrastructure across the USA and Canada through Epsilon, with software-defined connectivity to data centre, cloud, and internet exchange hubs across the region. North America is expected to account for 43% of a global addressable IT market worth more than $6 trillion (£4.5 trillion) in 2026, according to Omdia. The companies say their partnership provides on-demand connectivity across their software-defined networks, in response to demand for connectivity between key markets in the USA and Canada. Customers can access additional destinations through a single connectivity service, whether expanding within North America or entering the region from international markets. Warren Aw, Chief Commercial Officer at Epsilon, comments, “North America is a key market for our customers, with growing demand for high-performance access to cloud, data centres, and digital infrastructure across the region. “By partnering with Megaport, we’re simplifying how our customers can connect and accelerate their growth in the United States and Canada. Together, we’re hugely expanding the opportunities available to our customers and making global connectivity more seamless than ever.” Connectivity across North America The partnership enables cloud access across North America, bringing applications closer to customers and their users, whilst allowing cloud regions to be connected on demand. It also supports content delivery across markets and business continuity through geographically redundant backup environments. Misha Cetrone, Executive VP, NAM & Global Alliances at Megaport, says, “Our collaboration with Epsilon brings together two complementary platforms to give customers more choice in how and where they connect. “We’re combining our strengths for unparalleled global connectivity, while creating new compute, network, and storage possibilities for businesses around the world. We’re excited to help more customers connect and grow across North America with our automated, globally connected infrastructure platform.” Epsilon and Megaport say organisations in Europe, Asia Pacific, and other international markets can also use the connectivity service to expand into North America and scale workloads across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. For more from Epsilon, click here.

Leviton invests $100m in network infrastructure

Leviton, a manufacturer of cabling, fibre, and connectivity products for data centres and enterprise networks, has announced a $100 million (£75 million) global capital investment in its Network Solutions business, aimed at expanding manufacturing capacity for fibre-optic and copper networking systems. The five-year investment follows an $80 million (£60 million) capital programme completed in 2025. Leviton says the new investment is in response to demand for networking products for AI infrastructure and smart buildings. Daryoush Larizadeh, President and CEO of Leviton, comments, “For 120 years, Leviton has remained relevant by looking beyond today’s demands and investing in what comes next. “This $100 million commitment to our Network Solutions business underscores our determination to lead through innovation, manufacturing excellence, and customer partnership.” The investment covers Leviton's Network Solutions manufacturing facilities for fibre-optic and copper systems. It includes increased capacity for Category 6A cabling and connectors, as well as expanded fibre-optic cabling and connectivity manufacturing for enterprise and data centre networks. Expanding fibre and copper capacity Ross Goldman, COO of Leviton Network Solutions, notes, “While many organisations remain cautious amid volatile raw material and energy costs, Leviton believes this is the right time to invest. “The expansion of AI, smart buildings, and high-performance networks is happening at an unprecedented pace. With this five-year investment, we’re ensuring our customers have access to the capacity, quality, and global scale they need, when they need it most.” The investment follows Leviton's previous capital programme, which expanded global production capacity, doubled the size of its Fuquay-Varina (North Carolina) facility, and increased its copper and fibre manufacturing capabilities. Ross concludes, “Capital investments like these are not just about adding capacity; they are about building long-term capability and service. Our customers are planning infrastructure for decades of AI-driven growth. We’re matching that vision with the foresight to invest in world-class manufacturing, even in challenging market conditions.” For more from Leviton, click here.

ECOC Exhibition honours optical connectivity innovation

Eight companies have been recognised at the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards 2026 for innovations in optical connectivity. The awards, presented in Málaga, Spain, recognise developments across optical modules, test and measurement, fibre infrastructure, and access networks, including technologies for photonics, quantum computing, and AI data centres. The winners are Avencia Tech, China Telecom, Ciena, Corning Optical Communications, Furukawa Electric, Keysight Technologies, Lumentum, and Semtech Corporation. Michael Lebby, Awards Committee Chairman at the ECOC Exhibition, says, “Congratulations to this year’s winners of the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards 2026 for their contributions and innovations to the optical communications industry. “It is great to see such strong momentum across the industry as new challenges and opportunities emerge from the sectors of photonics, quantum computing, fibre infrastructure, and AI data centres.” Optical connectivity award winners The award categories and winning products are: • Best Optical Module: Ciena’s Vesta 200 6.4T CPX• Best Optical Test & Measurement Process: Keysight Technologies’ N4378A Lightwave Component Analyzer (LCA) – 220GHz• Fibre Infrastructure Innovation: Furukawa Electric’s Snap-Beam Connector: Compact, Detachable Optical Connector for PIC Integration• Optical Access Innovation: China Telecom’s Industrial Network All-Optical Intelligent Connectivity (Industrial PON)• Optical Communication Innovation: Corning Optical Communications’ CPO FlexConnect fibre• Optical Component (Chip/Wafer) Innovation: Semtech Corporation’s 224Gbps per lane TIA family for linear pluggable optics• Optical Component (Package/OSA/Fibre) Innovation: Lumentum’s VCSEL-based FOWLP optical engine for AI scale-up networks Two further awards were presented as part of the Post Deadline Awards: • Higher optical communications value chain technology & products: China Telecom’s Optical Access Network 'Network-Compute-Intelligence' Integrated Intelligent Interconnection• Lower optical communications value chain technology & products: Avicena Tech’s LightBundle eKit: 1Tbps evaluation kit for microLED-based interconnects The ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards recognise technologies and companies in the optical communications sector. The 2026 awards covered developments intended to address requirements for AI, cloud, and high-capacity connectivity.

SUBCO announces 'largest subsea build in Indo-Pacific history'

SUBCO, an Australian developer of undersea fibre optic cable networks, has announced three new subsea cable systems - APX North, APX East-2, and APX West - to provide additional connectivity capacity for AI and other data-intensive applications across the Indo-Pacific. APX North is a 9,500km, 24-fibre-pair system that will connect Sydney to Japan via Guam. It will be the first hypercable from Australia to connect directly to Guam, and the first system to provide direct connectivity between Japan and Australia. Like SMAP, APX North will include switched branching units, allowing selected fibre pairs to bypass landing in Guam and operate directly between Australia and Japan. APX East-2, meanwhile, is a 10,000km, 24-fibre-pair system connecting Guam to Los Angeles. It is intended to provide additional route diversity between the US, Japan, and Australia via Guam. Bevan Slattery, founder and Co-CEO of SUBCO, explains, “This segment is vital and will serve as the backbone for trans-Pacific traffic between Asia and the US, as well as providing diverse connectivity for Australia and Japan via APX North. We expect this system to be incredibly popular.” The third system, APX West, is a 4,600km, 24-fibre-pair system connecting Perth to Singapore, with branches to Jakarta and Batam in Indonesia. The system is designed to provide additional resilience and flexibility through switching in and out of regional interconnection hubs in Batam and Jakarta. Bevan continues, “Singapore and Indonesia remain critical to Asia's connectivity landscape, and their strategic importance will only grow as bandwidth demand accelerates. "New interconnection hubs are needed to deliver greater flexibility and route diversity. We are building as much of that as possible into our system design and making that available to our cornerstone customers through APX West.” SUBCO is targeting completion of all three systems in 2029. Connecting Australia and Southeast Asia “I know it’s ambitious, but it’s achievable and it’s necessary. We are finalising the details of cable supply and vessels and expect to be Contract in Force on all three systems by early next year,” says Bevan. “People have been slow to understand that AI factories are dead without massive subsea connectivity to carry tokens from factory to customers - hundreds and hundreds of terabits per second. That’s why we are about to undertake the single largest subsea infrastructure build ever by a carrier in the Indo-Pacific. "Not only is the build itself huge, but the timeframe is compressed with over 40,000km of cable to be installed in just over three years. Our team has signed up for the challenge and will grow significantly as each system reaches CIF.” For more from SUBCO, click here.

iPronics, BSC advance optical networking for AI

iPronics, a developer of silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching, has announced a two-year technology collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) to advance programmable optical networking for GPU-based AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. The collaboration will bring iPronics's programmable optical switching platform together with BSC's research-class GPU and HPC infrastructure. The teams will investigate how dynamically reconfigurable optical connectivity can respond to the communication requirements of AI workloads. iPronics will provide its programmable optical switching platform, low-level software, and APIs, whilst BSC will develop software above the switch-management layer. The work will focus on networking approaches that align optical connectivity with AI applications. “AI infrastructure is reaching a point where scaling compute also requires rethinking the network,” says Christian Dupont, CEO of iPronics. “Networking needs to become more dynamic and more closely aligned with the behaviour of AI workloads. "Our strategic collaboration with BSC is an important milestone in bringing programmable optical networking deeper into the AI infrastructure stack.” Programmable optics for AI workloads The platform will be integrated into BSC's GPU and HPC infrastructure, allowing the teams to investigate networking approaches for AI training and inference, including large language models (LLMs) and mixture-of-experts (MoE) workloads. Antonio Peña, Leading Researcher and Group Leader at BSC, notes, “As AI and HPC systems scale, the interconnect is becoming an increasingly important part of overall system architecture. “Our collaboration with iPronics gives us the opportunity to explore how programmable optical networking and the software stack can work together to support more dynamic and efficient computing infrastructures.” The collaboration is intended to generate system-level insights that can inform the architecture of future AI infrastructure. The announcement follows iPronics's recent $125 million (£93 million) Series B funding round, co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, with participation from NVIDIA. The funding brings the company's total raised to $177 million (£132 million). iPronics has also opened a US office in Santa Clara, California, which it says will support its product strategy, customer deployments, and AI infrastructure partnerships. For more from iPronics, click here.

ESA funds €1.5m automated satellite backup for subsea cables

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected multi-orbit satellite communications specialist neXat to lead a €1.5 million (£1.2 million) project developing automated satellite backup for submarine fibre networks. neXat will work with satellite operator Telesat and telecoms infrastructure provider Colt Technology Services Belgium to develop and demonstrate CableShield, a system designed to detect submarine cable interruptions and automatically reroute affected traffic through satellite connectivity. Submarine cables carry an estimated 99% of intercontinental data traffic, whilst around 30% of tracked cables experience at least one fault each year. Repairs can take 10 to 20 days, potentially leaving critical services without their normal connectivity. CableShield automates traffic failover CableShield will use multiple satellite providers through a ‘Pooling and Sharing’ model. When a cable interruption is detected, the platform will select the required satellite capacity and reroute a controllable proportion of traffic, with routing and prioritisation protocols used to establish an end-to-end connection. The system will combine detection and decision-making with terrestrial and satellite control layers through a common orchestration framework. These layers will communicate using APIs defined through ESA’s Pooling and Sharing Interface Definitions, enabling multi-vendor, multi-orbit systems to exchange data and manage shared capacity. Caroline De Vos, COO of neXat, explains, “Submarine cables carry an estimated 99% of global connectivity, so when they go down, entire regions can lose access instantly, disrupting business, public services, and other critical communications. “Satellite provides the lifeline that keeps essential services online when their primary connectivity is gone.” The project will run for 18 months of development and validation, with commercial launch targeted for 2028 alongside the planned entry into service of Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation.

Telxius boosts Caribbean connectivity with Cancun facility

Telxius, a Spanish operator of submarine cable networks and telecommunications infrastructure, has opened a carrier-neutral landing gateway and edge data centre in Cancun, Mexico, strengthening connectivity between the Caribbean, USA, Latin America, and Europe. The facility serves as a landing point for Tikal, a submarine cable connecting Puerto Barrios in Guatemala with Boca Raton in the US. Due to launch in the first half of 2027, Tikal is expected to provide an initial capacity of 380Tbps on its main trunk. Integrated into Telxius’s global network, the Cancun facility combines subsea connectivity, terrestrial networks, and edge computing. It is designed to support data-intensive and latency-sensitive workloads, including cloud, content, AI, and CDN deployments. Edge facility adds network resilience The Tier III facility incorporates N+1 and 2N redundancy across critical power and cooling systems, alongside physical and network security measures. Its carrier-neutral design allows customers to interconnect with multiple networks, cloud providers, and digital platforms. The facility also provides an alternative route to Santiago de Querétaro, expanding Telxius’s network presence in Mexico and adding route diversity for customers. Mónica Martínez, CMO at Telxius, says, “We’re excited to expand our network footprint in Mexico with our new facility in Cancun. It truly reflects the convergence of subsea connectivity, terrestrial networks, and edge infrastructure to create a unique digital hub for the Caribbean and the Americas. “By bringing connectivity and computing resources closer to where demand is growing, we enable lower latency, greater resilience, and faster access to cloud, content, and AI-driven services for customers across the region.” The Cancun development follows Telxius’s recent network expansion in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and adds to its existing infrastructure in the Caribbean and Mexico. For more from Telxius, click here.

iPronics raises $125m for AI optical networking

iPronics, a developer of silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching, has raised $125 million (£92.6 million) in Series B funding to scale its programmable optical networking technology for AI data centres. The round was co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, with NVIDIA and other new and existing investors also participating. The funding brings iPronics’s total investment to $177 million (£131 million). The company develops silicon photonics-based optical circuit switching (OCS) technology for AI infrastructure. It says the growth of AI clusters is increasing demand for optical connectivity as networks move beyond the limitations of copper in high-performance environments. Funding supports commercial deployment iPronics says the funding will be used to expand operations, accelerate commercial deployments, and meet demand for its Optical Networking Engine, a rack-mounted optical switch designed for AI applications. Christian Dupont, CEO of iPronics, comments, “With this investment, we can significantly accelerate our commercialisation, delivering the scale our customers need to drive broad adoption and ensuring data centres can fully utilise their GPUs without compromising performance.” The company notes that it has also opened an office in Santa Clara, California, as it expands its US presence and works to increase customer deployments and AI infrastructure partnerships.

New ProLabs transceivers extend network reach to 2,400km

ProLabs, a provider of optical connectivity and networking equipment, has introduced two QSFP-DD transceivers designed to extend the reach of coherent optical networks to distances of up to 2,400km. The QSFP-DD 800G ZR LH and QSFP-DD 400G ZR ULH transceivers are designed for carriers, service providers, and large-scale backbone networks requiring ultra-long-haul transmission. The products are intended to extend 400G and 800G network capacity across national and cross-continental infrastructure, while making greater use of existing long-haul fibre networks. “We are delighted to have expanded our range of ultra-long-haul transceivers ahead of Connected Britain,” says Stefan Löhmann, EMEA Sales Director at ProLabs. “Our solutions will enable national operators to deliver new and efficient long-haul services, making it easier to deliver high-bandwidth connectivity between cities, across countries, and over subsea links.” With network operators facing increasing traffic demands, the transceivers are designed to extend the usable reach of existing fibre infrastructure without requiring additional network infrastructure. Transceivers support up to 30 repeater hops While standard 400G products support around six repeater hops, the new transceivers are designed to support coherent optical transmission across up to 30 repeater hops, equating to approximately 2,400km. Stefan continues, "By reducing the need for additional infrastructure while still maintaining long-distance performance, we're helping operators lower both capital and operational expenditure. "Combined with our commitment to interoperability and availability, these new transceivers provide operators with an open, standards-based alternative to proprietary optical networking solutions." The transceivers are compatible with standard QSFP-DD ports, allowing them to be deployed on existing platforms without significant changes to hardware. Both products use modulation techniques and integrated digital signal processing (DSP) to compensate for laser detuning at each repeater and chromatic dispersion over extended distances. The 400G and 800G transceivers will be available for the first time at Connected Britain 2026 on ProLabs Stand D75. For more from ProLabs, click here.

LINX, JPIX launch London-to-Tokyo network route

Internet exchange operators the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and Japan Internet Xing (JPIX) have launched direct network routes between London and Tokyo, giving European networks access to JPIX’s interconnection platform and local peering opportunities in Japan. The partnership began in 2018, initially allowing networks in Tokyo to access content in London through LINX. Under the new service, LINX members can now connect directly to JPIX Tokyo through the LINX LON1 peering platform. JPIX says it will manage the connection and ordering process through a carrier partner, removing the need for customers to arrange separate local connectivity. Mike Hellers, Product Development Manager at LINX, comments, “It’s great to see this partnership flourish. We have a handful of networks now peering in London from Tokyo with quite high bandwidths. We are pleased to now be able to work with JPIX to provide the reverse route from London to Tokyo.” European networks gain Tokyo peering access The new route is intended to support demand for Japanese digital content from European networks, including content associated with anime, manga, and gaming. An introductory service for LINX members provides 1Gbps connectivity to JPIX for £400 per month, including transport bandwidth between LINX LON1 and JPIX Tokyo. Other bandwidth options up to 5Gbps are also available. Tetsuya Hamada, Senior Executive Expert at JPIX, says, “This new route is a wider project we are working on to increase the awareness of local peering in Japan for networks in Europe.” Tokyo is a major interconnection location, with more than 20 international subsea cable systems connecting Japan with North America, Southeast Asia, and Australia. The service expansion forms part of LINX IX Connect, a programme covering its collaborative work and network routes with other internet exchange points (IXPs), including JPIX, Namex in Rome, and NYIIX in New York. For more from LINX, click here.