New full-fibre network to link Cambridge research institutions and enterprises to key sites in the UK, across Europe, and globally

By Brigette Currin 3 minute read

A new way for Cambridge businesses and research institutions to connect to key sites and communities across Europe is now available thanks to Light Blue Fibre, bandwidth infrastructure provider euNetworks, and the UK Innovation Corridor’s most advanced data centre, Kao Data.

Light Blue Fibre, which was launched as a joint venture by University of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire County Council in 2019 is now being enabled by euNetworks, which specialises in data-centre-to-data-centre connectivity across the UK and Europe.

Light Blue Fibre delivers over 100km of ducting and wholesale dark fibre in the Cambridge metropolitan area. This network is in place to facilitate high performance computing (HPC) within the education, research, and life sciences communities.

euNetworks will be responsible for delivering the operational and maintenance support necessary to provide both dark fibre and multi-Terabit high speed managed optical services across the Light Blue Fibre asset. These services will be available to all Light Blue Fibre -connected Cambridge campuses, organisations, wholesale internet service providers (ISPs) and partners from early 2021.

euNetworks additionally offers direct fibre connection to Kao Data’s campus in Harlow and unique fibre-based routes onward to London, around the UK and across Europe.

These new services enable direct, fast and latest generation connectivity to Cambridge’s science and research parks and pave the way for greater high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) collaboration across Europe. The state-of-the-art Kao Data campus has been built specifically for compute-intensive HPC and AI collaboration.

Professor Ian Leslie, Chair of Light Blue Fibre, says: “This is a very exciting development. Light Blue Fibre is connected into many of the key campus locations in and around Cambridge, offering the ability for campus 5G with Edge computing to gain a new and diverse network for the city. Collaboration with euNetworks and Kao Data will further serve the local community of University sites and campus locations, providing even more opportunities for wider connectivity.”

euNetworks’ CEO Brady Rafuse, says: “Data centre connectivity is critically important to businesses today, and our network development and new fibre system delivers vital infrastructure to support the many businesses and communities in Cambridge whose connectivity and collaboration requirements continue to grow.

“Our pan-European network directly connects over 440 key data centres in our operating markets – that is, all the major data centres in Europe, as well as key research sites. Our diverse and unique network routes to these locations, together with the solutions offered by Light Blue Fibre and Kao Data, offer a compelling connectivity response for those in the Cambridge community undertaking mission-critical computing.”

Kao Data’s CEO, Lee Myall says: “Science and research, especially within the life science and bioinformatics sectors, requires localised HPC hardware, low latency and high bandwidths to work with and move enormous datasets and batch files. Having a specialist HPC and AI industrial scale data centre in close proximity to Cambridge, which is connected by Light Blue Fibre and dark fibre directly to their processing points and the wider research network, is a gamechanger.”

Light Blue Fibre, euNetworks and Kao Data will be holding a virtual event on February 24th 10.30am-12pm to talk through these services, answer any questions and delve deeper into the technical demands the Cambridge community will need in the coming months and years. To reserve your place please register at:  https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/events/new-full-fibre-network/