Region’s science and research parks to benefit from new high-speed fibre networks linking key sites round the world
A new high-speed fibre freeway, Light Blue Fibre, is set to offer Cambridge businesses and research institutions a powerful new way to connect to peers in UK and across 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. The initiative, 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.
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.”
These services will be available to all Light Blue Fibre-connected Cambridge campuses, organisations, wholesale internet service providers (ISPs) and partners from early 2021.
At the Norwich end of the Tech Corridor, a consortium anchored by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and including The University of Cambridge is pushing forward with plans for a super-fast research network, which promises to be more than 1,000 times faster than a standard broadband connection. SETI (Smart Emerging Technologies Institute) aims to create the fastest collaborative research testbed in Europe. An initial feasibility study has been completed and funding sources, including from the UEA, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, South Norfolk Council and Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor, identified.
“By enabling collaboration between world-leading scientists and engineers, SETI will deliver research and innovation programmes never before possible. It will accelerate knowledge creation, speed up innovation and commercialisation, identify new value chains, boost productivity and develop solutions of national and global significance” says Prof Gerard Parr MBE (Lead Proposer | Head of School (Computing Sciences), UEA)
To read more about the SETI project click here
