Strengthening the Relationship Between Microsoft and the ORC
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) recently granted to FASTNET, a collaborative project between Microsoft and the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton. Prosperity Partnership grants support business-led research that arise from an industrial need by establishing research at low technology readiness levels (TRL) between businesses and academia.
As Lumenisity was acquired by Microsoft in December 2022, Microsoft will continue their commitment to the grant by match-funding the EPSRC support. Professor Francesco Poletti, Principal Investigator of the grant, co-founder of Lumenisity, and Partner Researcher at Microsoft, said: “We are delighted that Microsoft will continue with the grant. While Lumenisity was an SME focusing on the fabrication of cables for data communications based on hollow core fibres (HCFs), Microsoft is also an end-user of this revolutionary technology. This means that research conducted within FASTNET will now have a direct impact on speeding up the introduction of HCF technology into Microsoft's Azure global network, the company's platform for cloud-based services and computing.”
Professor Poletti said: "One of the first attractions of HCF is that light propagates faster than in conventional glass-core fibres, enabling low latency services not otherwise possible. This brings advantages to many latency-sensitive applications in the cloud, but it requires more fundamental research for full exploitation. Addressing a number of fundamental and implementation issues through the combined work of teams at the University and Microsoft is the main aim of FASTNET.”
