TechCrunch AI's coverage of Relativity Networks points to a subtle but critical shift in AI infrastructure priorities. The industry's initial focus was raw compute; the next was internal data center networking. Now, as power constraints force buildouts to disparate locations, the limiting factor becomes the speed of light in glass.
Hollow-core fiber's potential 30% latency reduction is a meaningful engineering improvement, but its commercial success hinges on cost and deployment complexity versus the value of that extra geographical flexibility. The real test will be whether hyperscalers, facing multi-trillion-dollar buildouts, decide that shaving microseconds across miles is worth a premium over conventional fiber, or if they'll simply accept the latency hit and architect around it.