In this regular update, RCR Wireless News highlights the top news and developments impacting the booming AI infrastructure sector.
Meta plans nearly $1 billion data center project in Wisconsin
Meta Platforms is planning on spending nearly $1 billion on setting up a data center project in central Wisconsin as part of its investment in artificial intelligence technology, Bloomberg News reported.
Wisconsin in February reached an agreement with an unnamed company using an alias to develop a data center in the state with an expected multiyear investment of $837 million, according to the report. The company behind the project is Meta, the report added.
Investment in data centers has seen an uptick as tech giants have ramped up capex to meet the computing power needed to run generative artificial intelligence applications.
Meta has earmarked as much as $65 billion this year to expand its AI infrastructure amid investor pressure on big tech firms to show returns on their investments.
InfiniLink secures funding to develop integrated optical engines for AI data centers
InfiniLink, a semiconductor startup specializing in advanced optical data connectivity chips for AI-driven data centers, announced the successful closure of a $10 million funding round. This seed-stage investment was joined by MediaTek and Sukna Ventures, based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with participation from the Egyptian VC firm Egypt Ventures and angel investor M Empire Angels.
Since its founding in 2022, InfiniLink developed silicon photonics integrated optical transceiver chiplets (iOTC) technology. The funding will enable the company to advance its mission of transforming data center connectivity leveraging its expertise in analog mixed-Signal and photonics. As artificial intelligence workloads and data-intensive applications drive an exponential rise in bandwidth demands, traditional electrical and optical interconnects are hitting power and scalability limits. InfiniLink’s iOTC technology addresses these challenges by enabling low-power pluggable transceiver modules and high-bandwidth-density co-packaged optical engines (CPO). The firm also highlighted that these solutions provide ultra-high-speed, energy-efficient data connectivity essential for the next generation of AI-driven data centers.
SoftBank Group plans to raise $16.5bn for the ‘Stargate’ AI project
Japanese company SoftBank Group is seeking a bridge loan of approximately $16.5 billion from Japanese financial institutions to build the next-generation artificial intelligence supercomputing project dubbed ‘Stargate’, according to a recent report by Bloomberg.
SoftBank Group’s financing loan will focus on supporting its layout in the artificial intelligence field in the U.S. market, according to the report.
Previously, SoftBank collaborated with OpenAI, Oracle and MGX of Abu Dhabi to promote the construction of the ‘Stargate’ artificial intelligence data center.
Announced by President Donald Trump in January, Stargate aims to build big artificial intelligence-focused data centers in the U.S., with the first of these centers — a 500,000-square-foot facility — being planned for Abilene, Texas.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son previously confirmed the company would invest $100 billion in the United States in the next four years, creating at least 100,000 jobs focused on AI and related infrastructure.
Northern Data Group and Gcore announce strategic partnership to transform AI deployment and Inferencing
Northern Data signed a commercial partnership agreement with Gcore, an edge artificial intelligence, cloud, network and security solutions provider. The commercial partnership will position Northern Data Group and Gcore as a provider of combined AI as a Service and AI delivery and networking technologies to enterprise clients and model developers.
The partnership establishes the Intelligence Delivery Network (IDN), a distributed global network that boasts 180 points of presence, over 200 Tbps of network capacity and more than 14,000 peering partners combined with Northern Data’s position as one of Europe’s largest GPU infrastructure providers. The IDN is designed to enable the low-latency and secure delivery of artificial intelligence workloads at the edge, a critical driver for the wider adoption of AI inferencing applications. The artificial intelligence inferencing market is expected to grow to $169 billion by 2032, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Why these announcements matter
These announcements reflect a major acceleration in global investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Meta’s $1 billion Wisconsin data center shows how hyperscalers are expanding into new regions to support growing compute needs. InfiniLink’s funding signals a shift toward more energy-efficient chip technologies like silicon photonics, essential for handling rising artificial intelligence bandwidth demands. SoftBank’s $16.5 billion ‘Stargate’ project highlights how artificial intelligence data centers are now seen as strategic assets with national impact. Meanwhile, Northern Data and Gcore’s partnership highlights the growing importance of low-latency artificial intelligence at the edge. Together, they underscore key trends: decentralization of AI compute, demand for power-efficient hardware and the rise of edge-based artificial intelligence deployment.
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