Episode 87 - The rise of hollow core fiber with Jason Eichenholz, Relativity Networks
41m 32s
The podcast features Jason Eichenholz, CEO of Relativity Networks, discussing the transformative potential of holocore fiber for data center and telecommunications infrastructure. Unlike conventional silica fiber, holocore fiber uses an air core to transmit data nearly 50% faster and 1.5 times farther, with vastly reduced signal degradation and power loss. This addresses pressing industry needs, particularly for AI and cloud workloads, which require ultra-low latency and high bandwidth. Data centers, constrained by power availability and location, gain over double the geographic options to site facilities near energy sources. Eichenholz explains that his company, born from technology licensed from the University of Central Florida, is partnering with cable manufacturer Prysmian to scale production rapidly. While holocore fiber is unlikely to replace last-mile connections like fiber-to-the-home, it is poised to revolutionize long-haul and metro networks by extending reach, improving signal quality, and reducing the need for amplifiers, marking the most significant change in telecom fiber technology in decades.
(soft music) The Amir region demands infrastructure that's resilient, responsive and ready for anything. An NTT Global Data Center's delivers. With strategic sites across the world, including Amir hot spots like London, Frankfurt, Madrid and Johannesburg, we bring tier three and four facilities, low latens connectivity and global reach right where your business operates. Hyperscale capacity, check. Regulatory confidence, built in. Sustainability, and NTT GDC, we're leading the charge with renewable energy and next gen efficiency. Enterprises and hyperscalers trust NTT Global Data Centers to power mission critical operations and accelerate growth. Find out more at services.global.nTT. - Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Zero Downtown podcast. My name is Paul Lipscomb, the telecoms editor at DCD. Today we're joined by Jason Eichenholz, Red Tivety Networks Founder and CEO. In today's episode, we'll be discussing the potential for holocore fiber and learn more about Red Tivety Networks plan to support the growth of this and why it is important for data center connectivity. Thanks to Join us today, Jason. Really good to have you on the podcast today. And I'm also lovely to meet you at OFC earlier this year, which I think it was only April, we just talked about a few minutes ago. It seems like it was a much longer ago than that, but thank you for taking the time to join us today. I really appreciate it, Paul. Yeah, we had a great chat at OFC and talking about lots of different things, including some of the holocore fiber. And it seems like a year ago, 'cause we've been in this tornado of the startup mentality and it feels like yesterday, some days, and it feels like a year ago. So thanks for having me. - No worries, I've brilliant to have you on and you're absolutely right. It feels like these months are just merging into one. I don't really know how to describe it, but yeah, one big sort of, one big massive month, you know, it's already three or four months ago since it's a event. But Jason, before we get started and talking about relativity networks, let's just get a bit more about yourself and your career and a bit about yourself before relativity networks and what's got you here now? - Yeah, so I'm just by way of background, a PhD in laser physics, very technical, done a lot of bunch of things, technically deploying things. So anything from cancer detection systems to systems on the moon or Mars, I've got three spectrometers running around on Mars. That's the ultimate in deployment out there. And very focused on commercializing technology, bringing early stage technology, commercializing it, bringing to market. And for a couple of decades of doing that, I then had my own startup called Open Photonics, that company Open Photonics, which was focused on accelerating technology in the photonic space and bringing to market. We got acquired and merged with my other startup, Lumen or Technologies. We took that company from two people to a thousand people. We raised about a billion dollars at capital, and we went public on NASDAQ and my life changed. As people call it a 12 year overnight success. And in doing that, after that, I was a chairman of one of our subsidiaries for a couple of years, but kind of exited stage right. And really wanted to focus on what I call my chapter three, which was moving from a life of reputation building to one of legacy building. I started a nonprofit called Jonathan's Landing, focused specifically on autism, housing and employment, and a new way to go do that. And I was loving that. I was having a great time, but I got contacted from about three different ways by the University of Central Florida about helping them incubate technology within UCF and the College of Optics and Photonics. And I got approached by my now co-founder, Rodrigo Mesquia Grae on his Holocaust fiber. And I was very familiar with Holocaust fiber because I wrote about it 20 years ago in a trade magazine about photonic crystal fibers. And I was blown away by how far advanced he had gotten the technology using this next generation anti-resident holocore fiber. And so it started as a coaching mentoring relationship, turned into holy smokes. This is a big problem. This isn't about moving data centers across the river from New York to Hoboken to try and save on land. This is a huge power problem. And so we started the company, licensed the technology from the University of Central Florida, started commercializing it, got early stage customers, brought on partners, it's been kind of a while, right? - That's fantastic. So you've gone from sort of almost finishing off with your previous venture, and now I've been sucked back into the world of technology with red 17 networks. How, was this the opportunity that really got you back into this holocore fiber itself? - Yeah, I tell people that I really only need to make two people prank. The 13 year old me and the 80 year old me. And I need to look the 80 year old me in the eye one day and say, "Why did you sit this one out?" This is what I believe to be the single largest transformation to telecommunications with holocore fiber in 50 years. Once in a generation type change, given my background, given what I know how to do, how could I sit this one out? And the market forces were just so strong that I was like, okay, I know how to scale a company, I know unicorns when I see one, I know up an unmet market need. I wanted to, if my personal mantra is why not change the world? How can I not go and attack something in the photonic space that's addressing unlocking the full potential of AI? I couldn't sit it out. And every single day I pinch myself on how lucky I am to get to go do this. And obviously holocore fiber, some of our views might not be familiar with exactly what it is. I don't know if you'd be able to sort of explain what holocore fiber is and why it's important and why it could be important for the telecoms and the streets you're saying and just in general already. - Yeah, as we said earlier, fiber optic communications are pretty much the backbone of the modern internet and telecommunications infrastructure that people want high speed, high bandwidth transmission. They want to move vast amounts of data around the globe. And it's become indispensable in every element of modern life. You know, so for everything from getting updates on traffic on your cell phone to supporting the delivery of web content, you know, video streaming. Look, this podcast that we're on right now, you've got cloud computing and then the biggest one this coming is AI applications. So whether you're streaming video or financial trading that requires low latency data transmissions or enabling AI, it's all something that is needed for fiber optic communications. And holocore fiber is emerged as a transformative innovation where the light that propagates down an air core can deliver the lowest latency, basically the full speed of light and significantly higher bandwidth across multiple operational transmission bands compared to legacy silica fiber. Why is holocore fiber important? It's because we transmit data nearly 50% faster than conventional silica glass. And we enable that data to travel 1.5 times further. So 50% further with no impact on network performance. That's why it's so transformative. - I mean, as you say, faster trial 50% and was it 1.5 times faster travel as well? In terms of sorry, further travel. - Right, right. - So without impacting the legacy, the network latency or network performance exactly. - Yeah, of course. And that's obviously important. The fact it doesn't impact the network itself. That particularly use cases that this could be really useful for. - Yeah, so the so called a killer app is for data centers. Data centers today are facing unprecedented energy demands. At the exact same time, they're pressing on latency requirements. And so the holocore fiber delivers the critical infrastructure needed to support the exponential growth. Data centers are struggling to find power. They're struggling to find locations where they can get permitting, where they can get access to water, where they can meet this insatiable demand. And it's coming in two areas. It's coming from computing in the cloud. And that's been the traditional use of data centers, you know, whether it's an Oracle instance you're doing or you're trying to do, you know, manage your business and it's up on AWS or whether it's Azure or Google Drive, whatever it is, your Dropbox, it doesn't matter, it's in the cloud. But there's this whole new field for AI and AI work.
workloads that's demanding high bandwidth communications with low latency. Okay, and it goes back to the relativity networks as well, but we get to find out a bit more about what you guys are doing and seeing in this space at the moment. You mentioned the partnership with a University of Central Florida because to find out a bit more about how that ties into this as well. Right, so the technology that fundamental technology for our fibers and the fibers are only the beginning of what we do at relativity networks because we're expanding much beyond the fiber. Comes out of UCF and some of the UCF labs where there was about $10 million of DOD funding for high power laser delivery that high power kilowatts, you know more than two kilowatts of power. Turns out if you can put more than two kilowatts of power down a holocore fiber and it doesn't burn up, you can easily send the highest power telecommunication signal down a fiber from much longer distances. And that's sort of how this technology evolved and it was being done at the facilities at the University of Central Florida. We've taken that technology, we've upgraded the facilities with our funding, we're expanding it and now bringing on that partnership with Prismian. Our goal is to be the leading at-scale provider of how a core fiber to meet the insatiable demand for this next generation fiber. I was going to actually ask you about the Prismian partnership. How has that been and how did that come about and why did you guys choose to work with Prismian? Yeah, so we're scaling as fax as we can to meet the demand for customers and certainly a market pull. And this is the first time in my career that early stage technology was is a market pull. Look at at Luminar we developed LiDAR technology and we went from our first customer demo to me picking up a vehicle with my Volvo EX90 that I drive has our LiDAR in it and that took about a decade to do. Whereas we had purchase orders for our technology within a month of us forming the company. I mean it was insane on how quickly we went from that license technology to a purchase order. So how do we grow the infrastructure that really doesn't exist to make these specialty fibers? And I am talking with them and all the other players in the industry, I believe we can teach Prismian how to make our fiber faster than we can build that infrastructure to go do so ourselves. Which then becomes a big breakthrough for the entire industry who's been demanding how a core fiber cables it will enable us to meet that insatiable demand by hyperscalers for holocore fiber technology. And at the same time we get a very 18 billion euro company. We bring a recognized leader of communications and energy cable systems to better address those markets and provide the builders of AI driven data centers, the capacity and capabilities they've been clamoring for from holocore fiber. So it basically allows us to take the great parts of both and every time I look for a partnership I look for a one plus one equals 11 scenario. So you get much more than the sum of the parts when you put them together. And this partnership allows both of our companies together to be the leading provider of holocore fiber and cables. Let's just make that to what you said about the systems that you have in the car. That must be so cool to help create something and then you see an everyday use must be such a proud limit to see that when you're driving. You mentioned hyperscalers as well. So they some of the sort of key customers that you guys will look to work with with this holocore fiber. Yeah so the the data centers today are facing unprecedented energy demands and latency requirements. You just had the core scientific team on your podcast last week and talking about the core wave acquisition and a week ago there's the deal between open AI and Oracle. And people are you know while let's take the open AI and Oracle deal and that's a $30 billion a year deal. But that $30 billion a year deal will only work if you can find the 4.5 gigawatts of power needed to open up that. The same thing on the core scientific where they talk about 1.3 gigawatts and then an additional gigawatts. People are talking about gigawatts of power and unfortunately we don't have that. These AI workloads are processing large amounts of data. They're using machine learning algorithms and neural nets. They require ultra-fast processing and networking. They need ultra low latency due to the multiple distributed steps of data processing and the speed of and quality of the network determines how quickly, how accurately you can move that data, have it transferred and processed. That's what's consuming the gigawatts. If the network is slower unreliable it causes delays. It causes errors. It causes failures in the AI workflow. So these models need huge amounts of processing power, ultra low latency networking and storage to handle the increasingly sophisticated workloads. So these they're at this existential crisis where they're turning into power companies. If you look at the timeline of our company and when we form the company at the end of 2023 and you look at the deals that were in mid-24, 2024 where you had Microsoft find three mile island. You have Amazon doing a behind-the-meter deal with Susquehanna. People are clamoring for gigawatts of power but unless you've got the fiber optic networks to connect those data centers, you can't connect them to the grid. And so what we do at relativity networks is quite simple. We harness that 50% faster speed, that 1.5x in additional distance you can go. You do a pi R squared in terms of the circle that you can go in that connectivity. And we offer 2.25 times the geographic optionality. More than double the area to go find that data center of location that has access to power sooner that gives you optionality to go add green energy, alternative ways to power. You start on the grid, you can add your steam, you know, natural gas steam plant. You can add whatever you need to meet those needs over time. But now you've got more than double the area to do so. And that is why the hyperscalers and all the AI companies are calling us to go solve that problem. Excellent. Yeah, I mean, you obviously mentioned about AI that that's such an important thing over these workloads. They need to be processed very quickly. And are you less likely to have maybe delays in a network with holocore fiber than you would with say traditional fiber? You are. You're much less likely. And and the quality of the data is also better because in addition to the low latency from holocore fiber because you're going through air. You're also delivering signals with a thousand x lower nonlinearities, a thousand x lower chromatic dispersion, which sort of spreads these pulses out as they go down the pipe, which enables the deployment of future communications networks. It's just, you know, the errors are less. It's just a more stable solution in terms of delivering signal quality. Something that really struck me from OFC was the, that was quite a lot of talk actually around holocore fiber being. And I think you've mentioned it as well. Like a real time to change the standards of fiber for the first time in 50 years or so. It feels like there's a real opportunity really to grab to grab hold of that and maybe change that. Will that potentially replace traditional fiber or is that not really something it's going to compete with in terms of maybe to the premises or is that totally different? So it's actually, it's a really great question. And so, so sometime between the time you and I met at OFC a few months ago and today, my house finally has fiber to the home. And I get, they can deliver five gigabits per second of data to my house. I don't see a world where holocore fiber is being run to the home. Mainly because it's just the demand that we have. At the same time, if you, and these are rough numbers, you know, I'm a physicist so well within an order of magnitude, but within a few percentage. If you take a signal in a holocore fiber and you're trying to connect Tokyo to San Francisco, by the time the signal gets from, from Tokyo,
to San Francisco in a holocore fiber. At the exact same time in a traditional fiber, that signal is getting to Hawaii. So that big distance that you're essentially leapfrogging with holocore fiber because of the latency is huge, but you've also got the ability to have lower losses in these fibers, which means less amplifiers. So you take latency, lower loss, 1,000 x lower non-linearities and chromatic dispersion that enables the communications network. For the first time, you're able to effectively engineer the fiber itself such that you can design the fiber the way you want it to go. The telecom industry as a whole tends to use technology as long as possible. They don't want to jump generations if they can. And so as the speed of long reach and extended reach transceivers is going up, you're going from 400 gigs to 800 gigs, 1.6 terabets, and the distances become longer, things like dispersion start being the limiting factor. And so with the low and flat chromatic dispersion, it allows legacy technologies like intensity modulation and direct attack, which is called IMDV, to extend their use useful lifetimes and go further. You can take the lower non-linearities, the ultra low loss, and also extend the reach for the transmission systems. You can eliminate, they're called Ermin-Gope fiber amplifiers or ILAs in line amplifiers for very long links. You can drop half of those EVFA for a long haul or subsidy network. You can pre-amplify in the data center, for example, and pre-boost it because we can handle the extra power without the nonlinearities in our fiber. And we're already doing live testing with a major telecom provider where they're testing in their labs and we've deployed it in cables and running it between buildings to see how they can harness holocore fiber to design effectively, extend the edge of their metro network or see how they can look at next generation networks and deploying more fibers to more less fibers delivered to more homes. Let me say that again, how they can deliver to more homes with less fibers using the holocore fiber. All that is coming together in ways that they're having a re-engineer and redo the playbook for telecommunications. And that's why I'm super bullish on the relativity networks part of our business and what we're doing in the future telecommunications because people are having to rewrite playbooks that they wrote 50 years ago when Cal got the Nobel Prize for low-loss fiber in 1961. Now you can have low even lower losses in new wavelengths and new operating bands and put more signal down a fiber. Really exciting, the way you explain that. Obviously you mentioned about getting the fiber at your premises now at your home. I can't see the holocore fiber is going to replace traditional fiber in that sense but it is really exciting to hear that you have these tests with telcos at the moment. And to me it sounds very much like holocore fiber could be that just that extra bit. Take the fiber just that extra bit further maybe to the edge, like Metro edge, as you said as well, when traditional fiber might not necessarily be able to travel it feels like you can extend the boundaries so to speak and maybe enable you in other use cases around edge computing as well. Because that is exciting. I heard you mentioned sub-sea networks as well and that was something that I heard quite a lot at OFC potentially with holocore fiber. It is that an area of growth that you can see really benefit from holocore fiber. I think it is. I think the advantages are as I told you sort of the Hawaii use case and transport but also the lower loss. We are needing to move data globally more than ever. More data is moving around and with AI and inference and needing to be more local. If you look at the trends and going from 5G and 6G and latency, people need to be connected more and more and geography is becoming less and less of an issue. So absolutely we are seeing it. We have already been approached on it. I think it is going to take us quite a few years to get the capacity to go do that. But we are up for the challenge and that is one of the beautiful things about the Prismian partnership is that if we did have one of those and let us just say now they are hyperscalers. The hyperscalers are building their own networks. If you look at what Google did just announced just I think it was last week on what they are doing and going through I think it was the Bahamas or where they are going through on that network and creating those hubs. They are realizing they are needing these long haul, you know, sub-sea networks more than the traditional telcos are. So yeah, it is an area that we are watching very closely and we will as we continue to scale through 2026 and 2027 and ramping our manufacturing, that is certainly something we can add infrastructure for. Fantastic. I mean it is exciting to hear more about that. Definitely we will be keeping tabs on that for sure. In terms of challenges maybe around holocaust fiber, are there challenges in terms of how you guys create these fiber cables and is a cost-changes? What would be the sort of the changes in terms of traditional single mode fiber? Yeah, in any new technology deploying early technology and commercializing it is a challenge. And there are hundreds of millions of kilometers of fiber per year capacity around the world to make traditional fiber and that industry has had more than 50 years to sort of work out the kinks and advance the tech and we are sort of starting from ground zero with holocaust fiber and how you make it. The other challenge is building the infrastructure around installation and the networks. Again, we are called relativity networks not relativity fiber for that reason. We are the partnership with prison on building the infrastructure to make the fiber is amazing and fantastic and we are so lucky to have them as that trusted partner to go build the infrastructure to make it. The next step is cabling and traditionally in this industry it was the model T of cabling. You know, you can have any color you want as long as it's black. But each customer that wants to deploy lots of fiber wants their own configuration of the cable and that's the other half of what Chris me and brings is the flexibility on the cabling. And then we are building the entire ecosystem to support the installation. People often talk about the needs to do they talk about oh, well, splicing is hard or this is hard. It's not, but they need to be taught. So we're training people on how to go do the installations, how to pull the cables, how to splice them in, how to protect them. And we've created what's called the trusted installation partner program, which we'll be sharing details on in the next month or so. And that allows us to ensure that we've got people that understand hollow core fiber, it gets installed into the ground, it gets spliced properly. And then our connectors that go from the hollow core to the standard step index fibers are connectedized in and from a network operator is completely transparent. And then those can plug into the next generation of transvers and amplifiers to truly harness the power of hollow core fiber. When we do that, we are meeting the needs of what we're being told by our customers totally solves their problem so that they feel much more comfortable implementing it and taking the risk to use new technology. But when you're spending $30 billion a year to go build data centers, the cost of fiber is a rounding error. It's the risk that they don't want to take. By solving for all that risk, we immediately advance in the conversations with our customers for better appointments. Sounds like there's a lot of preparation that goes into that. And the trusted partner program sounds very exciting actually. Sounds like a good initiative. And you, obviously, mentioned about splicing the fiber cable. I think when I wrote about relativity on a year, they sent over a photo. I think it was a view splicing the fiber cable.
and it's not as easy as it looks. I don't think personally. I've tried splicing a traditional fiber cable. Is it very different in terms of how you splice a polychloric fiber, but then from a traditional fiber cable itself? Is there a much different process to that? It's very similar, but it's also different. It's very in a standard step index fiber. You don't have to worry about rotating the fiber, but in a standard telecommunications polarization maintaining PM fiber, you do. So all the infrastructure to rotate fibers and how to align the two fibers to each other existed, but now there's such a pull and demand in the Holocaust space that the out what we had to do initially internally is now being put directly into the machines as we go by the splicers. And we are constantly evaluating new splicers and new technology to interrogate the fibers, you know, in OTDR is another example of a howdy. How do you see the break in a Holocaust or fiber? When we first got our, we did one of our first installations, the customers like, hey, you shorted me on fiber. And the reason we, they thought that was because the OTDR wasn't configured specifically for air as an index or a fraction, it was expecting a 1.47 index or a fraction. So they didn't quite understand that, oh, wait, it was doing its job. It's just the time difference in the fiber. All of that infrastructure is slowly being developed and we're bringing each of those manufacturers along for the ride because we're really partnering with each of them. And then we bring that through our trusted installation partner to ensure that it gets deployed into the field. So there's a bit of a nuance in an arc to it. And then our engineers turn that into something that can be deployed with procedures and processes at scale. Excellent. In terms of the rest of the year for relativity, can we expect any other announcements, any more partnerships? Or is that something you can't really sort of comment on? So we've got a new account announcement coming out very shortly on additional funding. We also have additional partnerships and customers coming. I think we could probably look at those probably in Q3 and Q4 as additional activities. We're seeing a lot of demand for the technology. But you should see that trusted installation partner announcement coming out shortly. Excellent times. I'm talking about excitement. Why excites you the most about Honourable Fiber for the future? And in terms of use cases, you really want to see. Yeah, as I said before, my mantra is why not change the world. I'm lucky that I get to do it. This is my third time. I feel like I get to do it. The first time was at Luminar and really focusing on how do we fundamentally transform transportation? Second is the work I get to do at Jonathan's Landing. And again, I view this as the single largest transformation to telecommunications and telecommunications infrastructure in 50 years. I want to be part of that. My team that's phenomenal wants to be part of this. They get excited about shaping the future of telecommunications. So how can you not get out of bed every day excited to go do that? Absolutely. I obviously mentioned Jonathan's Landing as well. I think we spoke a bit about that. I have seen fantastic calls like Jenny Buddy who's listened to this to look that up as well. Brilliant work, what you guys are doing with that. And I understand you are using that as a way of also training people up to get into the sort of telecoms or technology, et cetera. Is that right? Adjacently, yes. So we at Jonathan's Landing, we are building housing for 500 residents and our goal is to create 5,000 career pathways for the hero diverse. And we want to employ the under-employed. One of the best ways to employ the under-employed in the near-diverse is to create the company that supports them from day one. And we have a company called Techtonic where we are in the cell phone and tablet repair refurbishment and asset disposition business. There's a nationwide shortage of 20,000 cell phone technicians. And we've been given from CTIA the basically free access and license to their wise curriculum. Wireless industry service excellence is the curriculum. And we had a state of Florida grant last year for a million dollars to develop a training program to go create cell phone technicians and build the training systems. We had another 750,000 two weeks ago to expand that program to additional schools. We're again, just like everything we're doing at Relativity Networks on Partnerships and Jonathan's Landing, same thing on partnerships. We've brought in the organizations locally that support individuals with special needs. We've taken that funding and set us, you know, taking our funding and hoarding it to ourselves and sort of backing away. We opened our arms and we invited all the other organizations in town to be part of that. And our goal was to create a very profitable business called Techtonic. That's a wholly owned subsidiary of Jonathan's Landing Foundation, which is a 5-1-C-3, not for profit. And that allows us to take the profits we make and do contracts and service contracts or disposition contracts or some of the largest companies in the world. And just pose of those cell phones and ensure that they're responsibly recycled, ensure that they're wiped of critical data and take those profits to help offset the expenses for the families that are struggling to find housing and services for their adults with autism. That's the goal. And it's something I'm able to have be the catalyst to have started because of my financial success at Jonathan's Landing. And it's something as we have financial success at Relativity Networks, I can put into overdrive. Fantastic. Yeah, brilliant, Jason. Honestly, it sounds like such a great program. Also, it seems to cover a lot of different sectors as well. In terms of the environmental aspect of it as well as supporting workforce, there's a lot to be proud about for that for sure. And just sort of recapping and coming to the end of this podcast, what can we expect for the HCF, high-core, fibre hype? Can we expect it to continue? Because this year, it seems to be really, really exciting. And it seems to be like you say the industry's bullish about it. Can we expect that to continue into the future? Yeah, since we met at OFC, we've seen even more interest from customers. A lot of them had a very negative perception of it because of all the things we talk about, the splicing, the connectorization. When they find out that we can take that soup to nuts, we even had a major telecommunications company when we talked about some of the work on the transceivers and amplifiers and that we are partnering with the people that make those that equipment, that we could help them configure the network for them. We can help them with the route planning, ensure that it gets done and installed properly. They're like, oh yes, we definitely want to talk more. People are afraid of early stage technology, you've got the early adopters, back versus the laggards. Even some of the laggards that we talked to at OFC have come around since then and said, okay, now we understand the use case a bit more. The latency is the key driver for the data centers. The lower non-linearities and the lower dispersion seems to be the killer app for a lot of the network operators extending the metro edge both in time and solving the time problem with the faster speed of light but also extending the reach of their 400 gig or 800 gig installations with direct attack for example. So for the first time you can engineer everything you want about the fiber into a fiber. You can look at the wavelength bands, the dispersion, the non-linearities, the losses. It's a true revolution and so I only expect what was hyped to become traction in the industry as you see more and more sessions at the technical conferences focusing on just dispersion, focusing on just non-linearity, how you can define the network of the future when the old rules that are 50 years old are now essentially erased. And that's why we're so bullish as relativity networks and that's why our customers are be cut.
are going from skeptics to the converted. We shall see how it all unfolds. I'm excited to tell unfolds. I'm sure our listeners are as well. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to speak to you again. Hopefully catch up with you again soon. If not, OFC is probably going to be here soon. Sooner or later anyway, but thanks again for your time today. Thanks for having me on the podcast and thanks again for the conversation. The Amir region demands infrastructure that's resilient, responsive and ready for anything. An NTT Global Data Center delivers, which strategic sites across the world, including Amir hot spots like London, Frankfurt, Madrid and Johannesburg. We bring tier 3 and 4 facilities, low latins connectivity and global reach right where your business operates. Regulatory confidence, built in, sustainability, and NTT GDC, we're leading the charge with renewable energy and next gen efficiency. Enterprises and hyperscalistros NTT Global Data Centers to power mission critical operations and accelerate growth. Thanks for listening to DCD zero downtime. For the latest news, features and industry opinions, head to datacenterdynamics.com. Create an account today for free to stay up to date with the data center industry. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Holocore fiber transmits data approximately 50% faster and 1.5 times farther than traditional silica fiber, with significantly lower signal distortion and power loss.
It addresses critical data center challenges by enabling greater geographic flexibility for locating facilities near power sources and supporting the high-bandwidth, low-latency demands of AI and cloud computing.
Relativity Networks, founded by Jason Eichenholz, is commercializing this technology through a partnership with Prysmian to scale production and meet market demand from hyperscalers and telecom providers.
The technology represents a foundational shift in telecommunications infrastructure, potentially extending network reach and efficiency without requiring a full replacement of existing last-mile connections like fiber-to-the-home.
Summary:
The podcast features Jason Eichenholz, CEO of Relativity Networks, discussing the transformative potential of holocore fiber for data center and telecommunications infrastructure. 5 times farther, with vastly reduced signal degradation and power loss. This addresses pressing industry needs, particularly for AI and cloud workloads, which require ultra-low latency and high bandwidth.
Data centers, constrained by power availability and location, gain over double the geographic options to site facilities near energy sources. Eichenholz explains that his company, born from technology licensed from the University of Central Florida, is partnering with cable manufacturer Prysmian to scale production rapidly. While holocore fiber is unlikely to replace last-mile connections like fiber-to-the-home, it is poised to revolutionize long-haul and metro networks by extending reach, improving signal quality, and reducing the need for amplifiers, marking the most significant change in telecom fiber technology in decades.
FAQs
Holocore fiber is a type of fiber optic cable where light propagates through an air core, enabling data transmission nearly 50% faster and 1.5 times further than conventional silica glass fibers, with significantly lower latency and improved signal quality.
Holocore fiber addresses the unprecedented energy demands and low-latency requirements of data centers, especially for AI applications, by providing faster, more reliable connectivity that supports exponential growth and reduces network delays and errors.
By enabling data to travel 50% faster and 1.5 times further, holocore fiber offers over double the geographic optionality for data center placement, allowing access to power sources and green energy solutions in a wider area.
Holocore fiber provides ultra-low latency, lower signal loss, and significantly reduced nonlinearities and chromatic dispersion (up to 1000x lower), which improves data quality, extends transmission distances, and reduces the need for amplifiers in networks.
Primary customers include hyperscalers, AI companies, and enterprises with mission-critical operations, as they require high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity to support cloud computing, AI workloads, and data-intensive applications.
Relativity Networks licenses and commercializes holocore fiber technology, partnering with entities like the University of Central Florida and Prismian to scale production and meet the growing demand from data centers and telecommunications providers.
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