“Our continuing collaboration with FiberLight enables its top-tier hyperscale customers to meet AI data demands, reaching up to 30 percent farther in long-haul networks with 800G wavelength transmissions,” said Rod Naphan, Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Customer Success at 1Finity.  

Addressing energy issues

Another key issue that the T900 solution helps FiberLight and its hypercaler customers is keeping power demands in check.

As AI compute power grows, data centers also face rising energy costs.

With its closed-loop liquid cooling technology, 1Finity claims the T900 transponder delivers twice the cooling capacity and consumes up to 70 percent less power at 800 Gbps wavelengths, as demonstrated in a recent lab trial at the Orange Innovation Labs in Lannion, France, for optimized energy efficiency and sustainability.

During that trial, which could also be relevant to FiberLight as it scales services for its data center customers, Orange found that the consumption of the 1FINITY T900 transponder remained low and constant across all transmission rates, achieving a transport distance of at least 1600 km at 800 Gbps with power consumption below 150 Watts.

Tripling AI workloads

The timing of FiberLight’s deployment of the 1Finity T900 platform coincides with a rise in global data center capacity.

According to McKinsey, as artificial intelligence (AI) workloads escalate, global data center capacity demand is expected to nearly triple by 2030, driving the need for high-bandwidth optical network transport and higher wavelength counts over longer distances.

One of the potential advantages that FiberLight has is that it does not operate its data centers.

FiberLight provides both dark fiber and high-capacity data center interconnect (DCI) solutions across multiple regional networks and throughout Texas, an epicenter of data center growth.

The service provider has built fiber infrastructure into data centers within its regional networks in Texas, Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Atlanta, and Tampa Bay. This enables it to provide both dark fiber and high-capacity data center interconnection via 10 G or 100G wavelengths, as well as Ethernet transport.

The service provider has continued to position its fiber network to address markets like Texas, which has become an epicenter for data centers.

In May, FiberLight relocated its corporate headquarters to the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Metroplex, positioning it to capitalize on the explosive growth of data center operations.

But its presence in one of Texas’ largest cities isn’t just about technology. FiberLight’s commitment to expand its fiber network will position it to grow its workforce and contribute to the region’s economy.

Spanning nearly 11,000 square feet, the new headquarters will house 65 employees across executive leadership, people and culture, business development, public sector, sales, engineering, IT, and vendor management. 

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