Optical & Fixed Networks

Furukawa announces fibre and cable investment in India and Brazil

Furukawa announces fibre and cable investment in India and Brazil

A Japanese company has announced plans for a major investment in optical fibre and cable capacity that could benefit facilities in India and Brazil.

Japanese industrial and electrical services company Furukawa Electric has said it will invest 100 billion yen (about US$635 million) into expanding capacity for optical fibres and rollable ribbon cables in India, the United States, Brazil and Japan.

The move comes as demand for such fibre in particular continues to rise from the AI hyperscaler industry.

Furukawa notes that mass production resulting from these investments is scheduled to commence progressively from the second half of FY2028 onward.

As the company explains, in recent years, against the backdrop of the rapid adoption of generative AI and the sophistication of cloud services, the data centre market has continued to show robust growth worldwide. In particular, with increasing investments in infrastructure centred on hyperscale data centres, demand for high-quality optical fibre cables is expected to grow significantly over the medium to long term.

It adds that demand for rollable ribbon cables, which accommodate high-capacity optical transmission, remains strong, and the current order environment is favourable. Further growth is also expected over the medium-to-long term.

In India, Furukawa, together with Universal Cables Limited (UCL), has a joint venture company, Birla Furukawa Fibre Optics Limited (BFFO). Its registered office and manufacturing facilities are in Goa. Furukawa says that the investment in BFFO will be subject to mutual agreement with UCL on the relevant terms. In Brazil it will be upgrading facilities at its Lightera LatAm division.

By offering high-performance, differentiated products, the company says, it will contribute to the further evolution of data centres that support the advancement of generative AI, as well as to the development of the rapidly growing communications infrastructure sector.



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