Ciena agreed to acquire New Jersey–based Nubis Communications in an all-cash deal valued at $270 million. The move expands Ciena’s inside-the-data-center strategy, adding ultra-compact optical and electrical interconnect technologies designed to address the surging bandwidth and latency demands of AI workloads. The acquisition, expected to close in Ciena’s fiscal Q4 2025, will bring more than 50 Nubis engineers, most with advanced degrees, into Ciena’s R&D organization.
Nubis, founded in 2020 and backed by Matrix Partners, Ericsson, GV, and TDK Ventures, has developed two complementary platforms: XT Optical Engines and Nitro Linear Redrivers. The XT Optical Engines support up to 6.4 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth with low-power, low-latency operation and are optimized for co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optics (NPO). The Nitro Linear Redriver enables Active Copper Cables (ACC) to deliver 200 Gbps per lane up to 4 meters, overcoming the distance and power limitations of conventional copper. These innovations address the short-reach “scale up” and “scale out” connectivity domains critical for AI training clusters.
Key products by Nubis include:
- XT1600 High-Density Linear Optical Engine: A flagship 1.6 Tbps full-duplex optical engine with 16 transmit and 16 receive fibers (each at 100G), configurable for Ethernet standards like 400G-DR4 or 800G-DR8. It supports unretimed direct-drive operation, offering topology flexibility and industry-leading density (e.g., for co-packaged applications). Ideal for AI clusters requiring low-latency connectivity.
- Nitro 200G Linear Redriver: An electrical extension of linear optics to copper cabling, available in 4-channel and 8-channel versions. It provides superior signal integrity over distances up to 4 meters at 200 Gb/s per lane, with no user calibration needed. Recently introduced to enhance scale-up networks by minimizing noise and power draw.
By combining Nubis’ low-power optical engines with Ciena’s high-speed SerDes and optical expertise, the company aims to deliver differentiated CPO/NPO solutions and extend its interconnect portfolio. The acquisition also positions Ciena to offer one of the industry’s first open CPO platforms. According to Ciena’s Chief Strategy Officer David Rothenstein, the Nubis acquisition will not materially impact revenue until fiscal 2026, with positive contributions expected by fiscal 2028.
- Purchase price: $270M, all-cash, funded by Ciena’s balance sheet
- Transaction structure: reverse triangular merger; subject to customary adjustments
- Nubis headquarters: New Providence, New Jersey
- Employees: 50+, with 60% holding PhDs
- Intellectual property: 100+ patent applications, 30 issued
- Key products: XT Optical Engines (CPO/NPO) and Nitro Linear Redriver (ACC)
- Expected impact: <1% OpEx in 2026, accretive to business by 2028
In the transaction overview presentation, David Rothenstein, Chief Strategy Officer at Ciena, emphasized how AI-driven traffic is reshaping network architectures across three domains: “scale up” within racks, “scale out” between racks, and “scale across” multiple data centers. Rothenstein noted that electrical interconnects are reaching physical limits at higher speeds, while IMDD pluggables face growing power and design constraints. This is driving adoption of co-packaged and near-packaged optics for short reach, and eventually coherent optics for longer reach inside the data center. He projected the combined CPO and electrical interconnect market could reach $5–10 billion by 2030, with Nubis filling critical gaps in electrical ACC and CPO/NPO solutions. Importantly, Nubis’ XT Optical Engines integrate directly with Ciena’s SerDes for differentiated open CPO platforms, while the Nitro Linear Redriver extends copper to 200G per lane over 4 meters at far lower power than DSP-based designs.
“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 center, driven by the explosive growth of AI-related traffic,” said David Rothenstein, Chief Strategy Officer at Ciena.
See full presentation here: https://investor.ciena.com/static-files/85cf8178-643d-47f5-939a-1fa06e180b39
🌐 Analysis: This deal underscores the intensifying race among networking vendors to secure a foothold inside hyperscale and AI data centers. Ciena, traditionally dominant in coherent optics for wide-area and metro interconnect, is now extending deeper into short-reach domains where players such as Broadcom, Marvell, and NVIDIA are pushing co-packaged and near-packaged optics. Nubis’ IP-rich platform and talent pool give Ciena a path toward differentiated CPO/NPO offerings and low-power copper alternatives, positioning the company to compete in a $5–10 billion interconnect market projected by 2030.
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