Microsoft acquires Lumenisity, a U.K.-based startup that develops high-speed cables for transmitting data
Nickie Louise
Posted On December 9, 2022
Microsoft has acquired Lumenisity, a Southampton, England-based tech startup developing next-generation hollow core fiber (HCF) technology solutions primarily for data. The total amount of the deal was not disclosed.
In a blog post on its website, Microsoft said the acquisition will help the tech giant to expand its ability to further optimize its global cloud infrastructure and serve Microsoft’s Cloud Platform and Services customers with strict latency and security requirements. The technology can provide benefits across a broad range of industries including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and government.
As part of the Lumenisity acquisition, Microsoft said it plans to utilize the organization’s technology and a team of industry-leading experts to accelerate innovations in networking and infrastructure.
Organizations within these sectors could see significant benefits from HCF solutions as they rely on networks and data centers that require high-speed transactions, enhanced security, increased bandwidth, and high-capacity communications, the company added.
For the public sector, HCF could provide enhanced security and intrusion detection for federal and local governments across the globe. In healthcare, because HCF can accommodate the size and volume of large data sets, it could help accelerate medical image retrieval, facilitating providers’ ability to ingest, persist and share medical imaging data in the cloud. And with the rise of the digital economy, HCF could help international financial institutions seeking fast, secure transactions across a broad geographic region.
Lumenisity was founded in early 2017 as a spinoff from the world-renowned Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton to commercialize breakthroughs in the development of hollow-core optical fiber. Its goal is to be the world’s premier high-performance hollow-core fiber optic cable solutions provider.
In 2021 and 2022, the company won the Best Fibre Component Product for their NANF® CoreSmart® HCF cable in the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) Exhibition Industry Awards.
