AI Clusters Shift Network Spending Toward Back-End Fabrics
📅 - AI infrastructure spending crossed a notable line in the second quarter of 2026: revenue from switches connecting accelerators inside AI back-end networks exceeded sales of front-end data center switches for the first time. The shift puts high-speed fabric economics, supply availability, and vendor positioning closer to the center of infrastructure purchasing decisions across hyperscale and enterprise deployments.
Dell'Oro Group says the crossover happened only three years after AI back-end networking emerged as a distinct spending category. That speed is more important than the symbolic ranking. Front-end networks serve conventional server, storage, user, and application traffic across [...][... Check source for end of article ...]
📅 - Flex Pays $4.4B for EPC Power as AI Data Centers Go 800V - Flex is paying $4.4 billion for EPC Power, targeting a part of AI infrastructure that is becoming harder to treat as secondary: power conversion. The deal gives Flex technology for 800V data center architectures, grid stabilization and higher-density computing, while strengthening the Cloud and Power Infrastructure business it plans to spin off next year as a company.
The valuation is notable. EPC Power is expected to generate about $800 million in 2026 revenue, meaning Flex is paying roughly 5.5 times current-year sales for a supplier whose technology sits between utility power and increasingly dense compute infrastructure. Flex expects EPC Power's organic revenue to grow around 40% in [...]
📅 - Sparkle Extends Quantum-Safe IPsec From Data Centers to Satellite - Sparkle and Hellas Sat have extended quantum safe protection from terrestrial data center links to a satellite connection between Greece and Cyprus, creating an end to end path of 72,000 kilometers. The deployment links Sparkle's Metamorfosis data center in Athens with Hellas Sat infrastructure in Cyprus, testing post quantum security directly across satellite and data center links.
For data center operators, the useful part is not the satellite novelty by itself. Sparkle and Hellas Sat had already validated quantum safe protection between two data centers in Greece. Extending the same security model over a live geostationary satellite path means the architecture is now being tested [...]
📅 - Quantum Motion Expands $160M Round for Rack-Scale Data Center Quantum Systems - Quantum Motion has added investors to its $160 million Series C as it scales silicon spin quantum hardware designed for standard data center racks. The company says its CMOS-based architecture could cut machine cost and space requirements by 100 times and energy use by 1,000 times compared with alternative quantum systems, if those advantages survive commercial scaling.
The second close adds imec.ventures, Lansdowne Partners, Sony Innovation Fund, S3 Ventures, and Inkef to the round led by DCVC and Kembara. Quantum Motion did not disclose the amount added in the second close. The capital is earmarked for custom silicon development, semiconductor manufacturing scale-up, and international [...]
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