No AI Without Networks: 1Finity / Fujitsu Network Analyst Day 2026

1Finity, part of Fujitsu and backed by more than 90 years of experience in network equipment manufacturing, recently hosted its Analyst Day in Germany.

Masaaki Moribayashi, CEO of 1Finity, Keisuke Takano, Wireless Global Activities, and Hideki Matsui, Head of Photonics System Business Unit, outlined 1Finity’s strategic direction, presenting the company’s evolving positioning across its optical and wireless portfolio and detailing how both domains support its broader growth and technology roadmap.

No AI Without Networks: The Overlooked Foundation of the AI Economy

1Finity has a significant opportunity to position itself as a strategic supplier to European enterprises and telcos seeking to deploy intelligence simulations, digital twins, and sector-specific model training. In this context, secure and sovereign AI infrastructure built on high-performance networking will become a critical foundation for scaling these capabilities.

More distributed data centers across Europe, connected by photonics and powered by renewable energy, could strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty while improving the resilience and sustainability of AI infrastructure.

The AI Surge Causes Two Fundamental Challenges

Two key challenges for telcos and enterprise customers arise from the growing AI demand:

• Rising energy costs. These costs risk undermining the economics of the AI boom. The surge in energy prices could materially challenge the viability of large-scale AI infrastructure. Data centers are already among the most energy-intensive digital assets, making electricity costs a potential Achilles heel for model training and inferencing. As AI workloads scale rapidly, the sustainability of the AI revolution will increasingly depend not only on compute availability but also on access to affordable and reliable energy.
• Difficulty of transferring data over long distances. Overcoming reduced throughput when transferring data over long distances is difficult. Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) is typically optimized for short-range transmission of less than 10 km. Primarily designed for low-latency, close-proximity, high-performance computing or data center environments, RDMA is unsuitable for long-distance communication.

Rethinking Network Architecture For The AI Era

Photonics is emerging as the foundational layer of AI infrastructure. All-Photonics Networks (APN) can support massive data growth while improving energy efficiency by locating data centers close to abundant power sources and bridging the distance to users through high-capacity photonic transport.

By spreading workloads geographically and moving AI inferencing closer to end users, operators can reduce latency, improve responsiveness, and support emerging real-time AI applications. Networking for AI infrastructure spans data centers, 5G networks, and edge environments.

This architecture could create strategic opportunities for countries like Spain to host large-scale data centers powered by renewable energy, such as wind and solar, while efficiently serving customers across Central Europe.

1Finity Is Building A Compelling Networking Portfolio

The rapid growth of AI workloads is driving a shift toward distributing compute across multiple data centers. This distributed architecture highlights the growing importance of high-performance optical networking as the backbone connecting data centers, edge locations, and users in an AI-driven infrastructure. 1Finity’s portfolio addresses this growing demand in three segments: 

• Ultra-optical systems. These systems provide the high-capacity, long-distance optical infrastructure required for AI data center connectivity, alongside next-generation optical solutions for network planning, design, and control of AI operations. 1Finity’s NIC solution enables high-performance RDMA connectivity across distances of 100–200 km between distributed data centers and processing sites. To support this capability, 1Finity is working closely with Arrcus and its ArcOS network operating system.
• The transformation of legacy network infrastructure. This requires secure, sovereign AI capabilities that fundamentally modernize network operations. Advanced network observability platforms are becoming indispensable for delivering integrated, end-to-end service experiences across increasingly complex environments. Behnam Shariati of the Fraunhofer Institute, a strategic partner of 1Finity, presented insights into NOBS, a network observability platform enabling comprehensive cross-operator monitoring. NOBS introduces a data-sovereign telemetry and monitoring framework that ensures network data collection, analysis, and governance comply with strict regulatory and sovereignty requirements. 1Finity’s roadmap further accelerates operational efficiency through AI Assistance (40% faster issue resolution), Intelligent Advisor (60% cost reduction), and Autonomous Optimizer (85% less downtime).
• In the mobile domain. 1Finity considers AI-RAN to play an increasingly strategic role. The objective is to capture over-the-top revenue opportunities from services such as video analytics, private data sovereignty, sensor networks, and safety applications, all of which depend on carrier-grade network quality and reliability. The primary target market will be enterprise customers consuming GPUaaS, AI-Agent-as-a-Service, and broader AI services delivered on carrier infrastructure with shared GPU resources at the network edge.

How 1Finity Can Sharpen Its Competitive Edge

1Finity has several avenues to strengthen its position in a competitive market. 1Finity should:

• Focus on high-growth areas. Areas such as intelligence simulations, AI factories, sovereign cloud environments, digital twins, and sector-specific model training offer the greatest potential.
• Deepen ecosystem collaboration. Partnerships should include industry-specific associations, public and private partnerships like the Fraunhofer Institute, and universities, while building new partner ecosystems beyond the traditional technology sector. 1Finity could also intensify its engagement with European governments and EU institutions to advocate for All-Photonics Network adoption, highlighting its potential for sovereign cloud environments.
• Sharpen its sector focus. This helps develop stronger use cases, speak the language of customer stakeholders, and deliver outcomes that align directly with measurable business metrics. In addition, 1Finity should build stronger cross-functional go-to-market teams. Interdisciplinary capabilities are essential for activities aimed at non-tech stakeholders.
• Leverage Fujitsu Uvance more effectively. Closer collaboration between Uvance and 1Finity can further accelerate scalable, end-to-end solutions across digital infrastructure and services. Moreover, 1Finity should translate proven Japanese deployments and use cases into differentiated value propositions for European and North American clients.