Corning's new twist on hyperscaler cabling

3/22/2023

At OFC earlier this month, Mike Bell, Corning's SVP and GM for optical communications, joined the podcast to discuss the company's newest data center solution that shortens installation times for cables and connectors. The conversation was a reminder that even though speeds and feeds dominate the conversation on scaling networks and data centers, the physical plant and data center construction is an ever-present bottleneck to network expansion.

Newer methods of installing and routing fiber and cabling at scale are becoming more popular; they provide vendors with ways to speed up network installations, and they offer an additional layer of sales stickiness in a competitive market. For service providers, such solutions are a trade-off – they potentially can save time and labor costs and greatly simplify new installations, but they will also introduce a proprietary box or method of working that will invariably favor the vendor or fiber maker whose name is on the tin.

Here are some of the topics we discussed in this recording, which was made in March at OFC 2023 in San Diego:

Corning's EDGE Distribution System: what it is and how it works (1:48)
New flexible cabling options are providing better in-building connectivity (5:30)
Like everyone, Corning has its eye on AI and how it will change data centers (10:40)
How Corning met the supply chain challenges of the past two years (12:35)

For an unedited transcript of this podcast, click the closed caption button in the video toolbar.

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— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

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