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Accenture Announces Intent to Acquire AFD.TECH to Bolster its Cloud First Network Capabilities

Accenture | December 20, 2021

Accenture has announced its intent to acquire AFD.TECH, an independent network services company specializing in network engineering, operations and business services. Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

This acquisition would add more than 1,600 highly skilled professionals to Accenture globally, along with multidisciplinary capabilities across engineering, design, deployment, and operation of next generation networks, such as 5G and fiber.

“The combination of latest technologies such as 5G, cloud and next generation IoT is transforming the way businesses are operating across all the industries by creating opportunities for innovative services and new sources of growth,” said Olivier Girard, market unit lead for Accenture in France & Benelux. “To succeed in their digital transformation and take advantage of its full potential, companies must act now to adopt the right strategy and build new business solutions enabled by network investments. This acquisition would give us a significant footprint in advanced mobile and enterprise networks.”

The newly acquired expertise when combined with Accenture’s Cloud First capabilities would provide a broad spectrum of proven practices, operational excellence and human ingenuity to help clients drive comprehensive transformation across their disparate networks.

Karthik Narain, global lead, Accenture Cloud First, said: “Most networks were not built for today’s highly distributed world of cloud, edge devices and remote work. Increasingly, companies will need to invest in modern networks that seamlessly connect across the dynamic capabilities of the cloud continuum from public through edge and everything in between. AFD.TECH’s network operations and IT capabilities, as well as its deep industry knowledge, would complement Accenture’s cloud, edge computing, security, and network capabilities to help clients shape, build and operate cloud-first networks.”

Founded in 1998, AFD.TECH serves leading telecom brands and clients across various other industries, including energy, industrial, infrastructure and life sciences sectors. The company is based in France with additional offices in Belgium and Morocco.

“Combining our strengths with Accenture would allow us to leverage the potential offered by the latest technologies and to allow an even-broader client base, both existing and future, to grasp the full potential of the range of new services that will be generated by the deep transformation across nearly every industry and market in the next five years. The opportunity to join Accenture would allow us to scale capabilities and enable tremendous opportunity for our clients, our company and our people. Together, we would help clients adapt their operating model, expand the skills of their people and drive innovation to unlock the full potential of 5G.” 

Jérôme Picard, co-founder and CEO of AFD.TECH

The acquisition of AFD.TECH would strengthen Accenture’s network operations capabilities in Europe and follows Accenture’s acquisition of Arca last November and of umlaut in October 2021.

The acquisition requires prior consultation with the relevant works councils and would be subject to customary closing conditions.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services—all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 624,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities.

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Openreach expands Optical Spectrum Access solution with 100G service powered by Adtran

Adtran | August 04, 2023

Adtran today announced that Openreach, the UK’s largest wholesale broadband network, has deployed its FSP 3000 open optical transport technology to enable its new Optical Spectrum Access 100G Single enterprise service. Openreach’s new product offers a dedicated fiber link that empowers more UK businesses to harness point-to-point 100Gbit/s data transport. The solution also brings efficiency benefits that reduce capital and operational expenditure. The latest collaboration builds on more than a decade of successful partnership between Adtran and Openreach. “Corporate cloud applications and other data-intensive tasks such as data centre backhaul are fueling a growing demand for bandwidth. Adtran’s scalable optical technology enables us to offer a managed, high-speed service that satisfies that demand at a highly competitive price point,” said Simon Williams, head of optical products at Openreach. “With no filters or amplifiers required, our Optical Spectrum Access 100G Single service offers secure and always-on optical services that can transport enormous amounts of data. We’re also making dedicated, uncomplicated and customizable access available in a slimmed-down package that’s even easier to manage.” Openreach’s Optical Spectrum Access 100G Single offers a choice of point-to-point Ethernet links at 100Gbit/s or 10 separate channels at 10Gbit/s. Built on Adtran’s scalable, open FSP 3000 optical transport technology, the service empowers Openreach to meet the growing demand for data-intensive cloud-based applications. Engineered for operational simplicity, Adtran’s compact and highly efficient FSP 3000 platform offers a dedicated fiber link ensuring low latency, consistent service quality and unparalleled network reliability for Openreach’s customers. “Our FSP 3000 technology gives Openreach a powerful optical transport solution that efficiently delivers high-bandwidth services for enterprise customers. Using the Optical Spectrum Access 100G Single service, businesses can now smoothly manage substantial data transfers, even during peak operational hours,” commented Stuart Broome, GM of EMEA sales at Adtran. “We have a great track record of partnering with Openreach to advance digital transformation across the UK. It’s a relationship based on trust and a shared dedication to deliver for customers. Together, we’re providing extra capacity and value for more businesses.” About Adtran ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADTN and FSE: QH9) is the parent company of Adtran, Inc., a leading global provider of open, disaggregated networking and communications solutions that enable voice, data, video and internet communications across any network infrastructure. From the cloud edge to the subscriber edge, Adtran empowers communications service providers around the world to manage and scale services that connect people, places and things. Adtran solutions are used by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations and millions of individual users worldwide. ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. is also the largest shareholder of Adtran Networks SE, formerly ADVA Optical Networking SE.

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Scala Data Centers enables new Hyperscale market in Curauma, Chile, on campus with 30MW of IT capacity

prnewswire | August 08, 2023

Scala Data Centers, the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market, announces the start of the SSCLCR01 data center operations, located in Curauma, Valparaíso region, Chile. Scala's new data center, boasting an investment of US$ 65 million and a robust 5MW of IT capacity, has been launched 100% booked to one Hyperscale customer. It is strategically situated in our Curauma Campus, poised for exponential growth, as it is designed to reach a critical capacity of approximately 30MW in the coming years. Delivered in just 10 months, Scala's new data center is part of the company's strategy to enable new Hyperscale markets acrossLatin America. In addition to the availability of land, energy, connectivity, and proximity to consolidated markets – it is based 56 miles from theSantiagometropolitan area – Curauma will establish itself on the world's connectivity map with the arrival of the Humboldt submarine cable, which promises to connectLatin Americato theAsia-Pacificregions for the first time. With around 9,500 miles of fiber, the Humboldt subsea cable will bring unprecedented scale, connection quality and lower latency betweenLatin America,Asia, and Oceania. Not to mention the connection the data center will have with the U.S. West Coast. "In a scenario where 5G accelerates the deployment of various services and applications that use high data volume and require low latency, Scala has succeeded in choosing its first campus to become operational inChile," evaluates Scala's CEO and Co-FounderMarcos Peigo. 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businesswire | July 24, 2023

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Astera Labs First to Break Through the Memory Wall with Industry’s Highest Performance CXL Memory Controllers

Business Wire | September 21, 2023

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Adtran | August 04, 2023

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Scala Data Centers enables new Hyperscale market in Curauma, Chile, on campus with 30MW of IT capacity

prnewswire | August 08, 2023

Scala Data Centers, the leading Latin American platform of sustainable data centers in the Hyperscale market, announces the start of the SSCLCR01 data center operations, located in Curauma, Valparaíso region, Chile. Scala's new data center, boasting an investment of US$ 65 million and a robust 5MW of IT capacity, has been launched 100% booked to one Hyperscale customer. It is strategically situated in our Curauma Campus, poised for exponential growth, as it is designed to reach a critical capacity of approximately 30MW in the coming years. Delivered in just 10 months, Scala's new data center is part of the company's strategy to enable new Hyperscale markets acrossLatin America. In addition to the availability of land, energy, connectivity, and proximity to consolidated markets – it is based 56 miles from theSantiagometropolitan area – Curauma will establish itself on the world's connectivity map with the arrival of the Humboldt submarine cable, which promises to connectLatin Americato theAsia-Pacificregions for the first time. With around 9,500 miles of fiber, the Humboldt subsea cable will bring unprecedented scale, connection quality and lower latency betweenLatin America,Asia, and Oceania. Not to mention the connection the data center will have with the U.S. West Coast. "In a scenario where 5G accelerates the deployment of various services and applications that use high data volume and require low latency, Scala has succeeded in choosing its first campus to become operational inChile," evaluates Scala's CEO and Co-FounderMarcos Peigo. "Furthermore, aligned with our purpose of enabling the future inLatin America, we have created a unique opportunity here for customers positioned on the West Coast of theUSAand for a potential group in APAC (Asia-PacificandChina) to offer their products and solutions to Latin American customers." Powered by 100% renewable and certified energy, in line with the company's portfolio, the new Chilean data center was built based on the proprietary and innovative One Scala Template design and construction methodology. With high efficiency in the use of its resources, the SSCLCR01 data center was designed to operate with a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) lower than 1.2-1.3 and with a WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness) of zero as it uses air cooling. The SSCLCR01 data center project was led by the company's pioneering Center of Excellence in Engineering (CoE), which has more than 340 engineers, architects, and data center specialists acrossLatin America. 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Headquartered inBraziland founded by DigitalBridge, it was developed to meet and exceed the growing demand for digital access inLatin America. Scala has a highly qualified team of over 800 professionals and applies a flexible and innovative approach to providing exceptional quality colocation services to hyperscale clients, cloud-based software and service providers, and large enterprises. We customize state-of-the-art solutions for each client in the construction of the latest generation data centers, with high availability, the best energy efficiency rates, and superior density. All this allied to the best sustainability practices guided by our ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) program.

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businesswire | July 24, 2023

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Data Storage

Astera Labs First to Break Through the Memory Wall with Industry’s Highest Performance CXL Memory Controllers

Business Wire | September 21, 2023

Astera Labs, the global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions for AI infrastructure, today announced that its Leo Memory Connectivity Platform enables data center servers with unprecedented performance for memory intensive workloads. Leo is the industry’s first Compute Express Link™ (CXL™) memory controller that increases total server memory bandwidth by 50% while also decreasing latency by 25% when integrated with the forthcoming 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor. Through new hardware-based interleaving of CXL-attached and CPU native memory, Astera Labs and Intel eliminate any application-level software changes to augment server memory resources via CXL. Existing applications can effortlessly “plug-and-play” to take advantage of the highest possible memory bandwidth and capacity in the system. “The growth of computing cores and performance has historically outpaced memory throughput advancements, resulting in degraded server performance efficiency over time,” said Sanjay Gajendra, COO of Astera Labs. “This performance scaling challenge has led to the infamous ‘memory wall,’ and thanks to our collaboration with Intel, our Leo Memory Connectivity Platform breaks through this barrier by delivering on the promise of PCIe 5.0 and CXL memory.” Data center infrastructure scaling limitations due to the memory wall are none more evident than in AI servers where memory bandwidth and capacity bottlenecks result in inefficient processor utilization. The CXL innovations delivered by Astera Labs and Intel directly address these bottlenecks and lay the foundation for cloud, hybrid-cloud and enterprise data centers to maximize accelerated computing performance. Extending leadership of PCIe® 5.0 and CXL 2.0 solutions Astera Labs has a history of delivering industry-first solutions that are critical to advancing the PCIe and CXL ecosystems. In addition to memory performance advancements with Leo, Astera Labs is also driving interoperability leadership with its Aries PCIe 5.0 / CXL 2.0 Smart Retimers on state-of-the-art Intel server platforms. As the most widely deployed and proven PCIe/CXL retimer family in the industry, Aries features a low-latency CXL mode that complements Leo to form the most robust CXL memory connectivity solution. “We applaud Astera Labs for their contributions to the CXL ecosystem and are delighted to extend our ongoing collaboration. We believe Memory Connectivity Platforms containing innovations from companies like Astera Labs will help deliver enhanced performance on next generation Intel Xeon processors, and accelerate a myriad of memory intensive workloads,” said Zane Ball, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Data Center Platform Engineering and Architecture Group, Intel. Visit Astera Labs at Intel Innovation! Astera Labs will showcase Leo and Aries together with Intel’s latest Xeon® Scalable processors at Booth #210, September 19-20 at the San Jose Convention Center. Talk to Astera Labs’ experts to learn more about industry benchmarks and how to optimize PCIe/CXL memory solutions in data center architectures to deliver optimized performance for applications ranging from AI, real time analytics, genomics and modeling. About Astera Labs Astera Labs, Inc. is a global leader in semiconductor-based connectivity solutions purpose-built to unleash the full potential of intelligent data infrastructure at cloud-scale. Its class-defining, first-to-market products based on PCIe, CXL, and Ethernet technologies deliver critical connectivity in accelerated computing platforms optimized for AI applications.

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