Ciena has agreed to acquire New Jersey-based Nubis Communications in an all-cash deal worth $270 million, adding co-packaged optics and active copper technologies aimed at scaling AI workloads inside the data centre. 

The deal will allow Ciena to expand its portfolio of high-speed interconnects and bring over more than 50 engineers with deep optical and electrical expertise. It’s all linked to the company building up its war chest to deal with the exploding demand for AI. 

“The acquisition of Nubis represents a significant step forward in Ciena’s strategy to address the rapidly growing demand for scalable, high-performance connectivity inside the data centre, driven by the explosive growth of AI-related traffic,” said David Rothenstein, Chief Strategy Officer at Ciena. 

“With ownership of these key technologies for a wider range of use cases inside the data centre, we are expanding our competitive advantage by advancing development of differentiated solutions, reducing development costs, and driving long-term efficiency and profitability.”

What Nubis brings to the table

The deal was cemented by two core Nubis technologies that Ciena highlighted as key. They are aimed at bandwidth, density and power efficiency demands inside AI clusters, and include: 

• Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) / Near-Packaged Optics (NPO): Compact, high-density optical modules supporting up to 6.4 Tb/s full-duplex bandwidth, optimised for low latency and low power. Paired with Ciena’s high-speed SerDes, the optical engines are pitched to enable differentiated CPO solutions for connectivity inside and between racks.
• Electrical Active Copper Cables (ACC): Analog electronics that drive copper links up to 4 metres at 200 Gb/s per lane, offering a low-power, low-latency option to connect more AI accelerators across racks without the reach limits of passive copper or the power draw of DSP-based cables.

In addition to technology, the deal is intended to strengthen Ciena’s in-house capability ‘inside the data centre’ with engineering talent aligned to its R&D programmes.

“The Nubis team is thrilled to join Ciena and enhance its industry-leading portfolio with our breakthrough interconnect technologies,” said Dan Harding, CEO of Nubis. 

“Together, we will advance Ciena’s data center strategy by delivering reliable, high-quality, and high-performance interconnect solutions to support the next generation of AI workloads.”

Under the agreement, the $270 million consideration is subject to standard purchase price adjustments for cash, debt and net working capital at closing. Ciena is also planning certain employee retention arrangements.