Prysmian lands €5.5bn AI data centre fibre deal

Prysmian has signed a €5.5bn supply agreement with Molex to provide optical cable for use inside AI data centres, giving the cable maker a rare dose of certainty in one of tech’s fastest-growing infrastructure markets. The 10-year deal also includes €550m upfront from Molex, which is unusual for a supply contract of this scale.

The agreement covers the dense internal fibre wiring used to connect servers, racks, and switching gear inside data centres, rather than long-haul links between facilities. Prysmian said its Digital Solutions unit will supply the cable, targeting a part of the AI buildout that expands with every additional rack of hardware.

That matters because cabling has become a quieter bottleneck in AI infrastructure. As operators pack more accelerators into data halls and move more traffic between them, the number of optical connections rises sharply. Prysmian is positioning itself as a picks-and-shovels supplier to that buildout, while companies such as Nvidia have spent billions on photonics to get around the limits of copper.

The Milan-based company said the Molex contract is the foundation for a broader push. Prysmian expects up to €10bn in cumulative additional revenue from hyperscalers and data centre providers through 2035, and up to €1.1bn a year from 2031 once new capacity is fully online. Those figures are targets rather than firm commitments, but the Molex deal gives the company a guaranteed floor.

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To support that expansion, Prysmian plans to invest €1.25bn in capacity through 2031, more than doubling its optical fibre production capacity in the US. The company said the programme will create more than 1,000 jobs worldwide, including 600 in the US, across optical cable and fibre production sites on both sides of the Atlantic.

“This is a transformative moment for Prysmian’s Digital Solutions.”

“We’re excited about this long-term agreement with Prysmian because it enables us to better support our mutual customers.”

What the companies did not disclose is which hyperscalers sit behind Prysmian’s forecast, or how the projected €10bn revenue opportunity is split across customers. Prysmian’s guidance points to 2031 as the point when its new fibre lines are meant to be fully earning, even as the €550m upfront payment arrives well before then.