HUBER+SUHNER is building a new state-of-the-art manufacturing site in Pisary, Poland, to produce their POLATIS optical circuit switch (OCS) portfolio at scale, acknowledging the substantial upsurge of interest in using OCS to increase utilisation and energy efficiency in high-performance computer clusters driven by the hyperscale data center boom in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The existing POLATIS OCS production facility in Krzeszowice, Poland, is currently running at maximum capacity. The new production facility for POLATIS OCS products broke ground in nearby Pisary. With a total area of around 3,000 m2, the facility is expected to be finished by the end of 2024. It will feature air-source heat pumps, together with photovoltaic panels for solar power generation and will also be equipped with its own waste water purification plant.
The new location will enable HUBER+SUHNER to capitalise on the growing opportunities and volume potential being presented by the AI data center market. AI applications have been widely used in many areas over the last twelve months. As a result, hyperscale data center operators and other providers of high-performance and cloud computing services are developing new architectures to scale their computing platforms to meet new demands in processing power, latency, scalability and energy efficiency that result from AI applications.
Optical circuit switches, also known as all-optical switches, are highly efficient for rapidly switching large volumes of high-bit-rate traffic between fibers with low latency, which is essential for AI. An OCS enables network operators to rapidly provision, protect, test and monitor terabit/second scale cross-connect traffic directly at the fiber layer.
All-optical switching technology removes the need for power-hungry optical-to-electrical signal conversion around the switch core, enabling transparent, future-proof connectivity with speed-of-light data latency. OCS technology helps to maximise network uptime, lower power consumption and reduce infrastructure capital expenditure. Use of OCS also makes remote operations possible, which results in optimised operating costs.
“The data center market is a significant part of the growth strategy for HUBER+SUHNER,” said Jürgen Walter, COO, Communication segment at HUBER+SUHNER. “Our POLATIS® optical circuit switch portfolio enhances our well established structured cabling solutions in the best possible way and will help shape future-proof data center architectures for applications like AI.”
Pisary, Poland, was chosen as the new location of this state-of-the-art facility because of its close proximity to the current production site, own expertise and established network of suppliers already existing in the area. Additionally, HUBER+SUHNER will greatly benefit from the good pool of skilled technicians coming out of nearby universities and technical schools in Krakow.
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