The News: Clearfield, the specialist in fiber management for communication service providers, announced that in partnership with Utility Telecom, it has delivered the fiber connectivity required by Nautilus Data Technologies to bring the company’s eco-friendly data center online. Located at the Port of Stockton, California, to utilize the San Joaquin River for water cooling, the barge-mounted 10,000 square foot carrier-neutral data center is connected to an 18-mile, redundant, high count fiber ring that Utility Telecom built to link the unique facility to a local carrier hotel. Read the Clearfield Press Release here.
Clearfield Partners with Utility Telecom to Deliver Eco-Friendly Floating Data Center
Analyst Take: Clearfield is stoking its ongoing market momentum in partnering with Utility Telecom to deliver the fiber connectivity essential to ensuring Nautilus Data Technologies’ 7MW (megawatt) floating data center is online and ready for prime time. The innovative data center is located at the Port of Stockton, California and uses the San Joaquin River for water cooling. Nautilus Data Technologies (NDT) designed the water-cooling system to provide high density compute at 1.15 PUE (power usage effectiveness) or less with a 30 percent reduction in energy-sourced CO2 and air pollution.
What I find especially compelling and innovative about this eco-friendly floating data center is that the system operates without consuming water, producing wastewater, or using refrigerants and chemicals, rendering it safe to water and wildlife. Clearfield demonstrated why its fiber management and connectivity portfolio met the unparalleled challenge of installing fiber-connectivity from land into a water-based data center. Clearfield’s flexible portfolio of cassettes, drop assemblies, cabinets, frames, and enclosures makes its solutions specifically well-suited to fulfilling a wide array of challenging environments including NDT’s demanding floating data center use case.
I see the alliance as further testament to why Clearfield is achieving ongoing market progress across fiber connectivity environments shown by its record fiscal Q1 2022 results. These results included revenue for Q1 2022 growing 89% to record $51 million, fueled by 81% growth in community broadband revenue in relation to the same year ago quarter and increasing fiscal 2022 net sales guidance to the range of $176M to $183M, representing potential YoY growth of 25% to 30%.
I see the post-pandemic trend of broader adoption of hybrid and work-from-home (WFH) models further fueling demand for community broadband services which use fiber connectivity to meet operator fulfillment of user experience demands and augmenting community-wide sustainability metrics. For example, expanded use of WFH and hybrid workforce models can reduce or eliminate daily commutes which can further lessen community CO2 and air pollution levels.
Key Takeaways on Clearfield and Utility Telecom Enabling the Nautilus Floating Data Center
I anticipate that organizations will broaden their commitment to meeting their ESG (Environmental Social & Governmental) objectives and advancing their sustainability credentials including improved PUE metrics. Clearfield is demonstrating why fiber optic technology can and will play a vital role in fulfilling organizational ESG and sustainability objectives on a society-wide basis.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
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Image Credit: Clearfield
The original version of this article was first published on Futurum Research.
Ron is an experienced research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets. He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including software and services, infrastructure, 5G/IoT, AI/analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.