March 23, 2026

Good morning. Ciena and Meta just broke a transpacific submarine cable record, Arista announced an optics module that cuts data center switch rack counts by 75%, and the refurbished networking equipment market quietly crossed $14.6B with no signs of slowing down.

Today's edition:

Let’s dive in.

Cato Networks put NVIDIA GPUs directly inside its SASE points of presence, which means AI-based traffic inspection now happens at the enforcement point rather than getting routed out to a separate cloud.

Arista announced XPO, a 12.8 Tbps liquid-cooled optics module that replaces eight standard OSFP modules in a single slot, cutting switch rack counts by 75% in large AI data center builds.

Meter acquired WiredScore, which certifies building connectivity standards for landlords and developers across 42 countries. Combined with Meter's existing strategy pillar of pre-installing networking infrastructure into commercial buildings, the play is to influence how a space is wired before a tenant ever moves in, a potentially lucrative play for the SMB market - who often prioritize cost and simplicity over feature density.

Ciena and Meta just set a world record transmitting 800 Gb/s on a single optical wavelength across 16,608 kilometers of transpacific submarine cable, using Ciena's WaveLogic 6 Extreme coherent optics on Meta's Bifrost system connecting Singapore to the US West Coast.

The trial also hit 18 Tb/s of total fiber pair capacity in just 10 rack units, cutting watts per bit by 50% versus the previous generation.

Between the lines: Submarine cables are infrastructure that most people forget exists until something cuts one. Roughly 600 cables carry over 95% of the world's international data traffic, and they have been geopolitically contested since the 19th century telegraph era. That tension has intensified considerably: China has accelerated its own subsea investments while the US has moved to restrict Chinese involvement in cables touching American shores, and hyperscalers like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have begun building and co-owning cables directly rather than leasing capacity from carriers.

The broader read: AI is what makes this urgent. Moving training data and inference traffic across continents at scale requires sustained, low-latency, high-throughput links between data centers. Pushing 800G across existing transpacific fiber without regeneration expands how much AI traffic Meta can move between Singapore and California without laying new cable. As AI becomes the dominant driver of subsea capacity demand, the companies that can move more bits per wavelength over existing infrastructure win on both cost and time.

Read the whole story

The refurbished networking equipment market is a $14.6B industry today and is on track to more than double by 2034, and it's not just SMBs buying used gear anymore. Large enterprises account for over 72% of purchases, driven by capex pressure, sustainability mandates, and a maturing reseller ecosystem that now bundles warranties and support with used hardware.

Why this matters now: As enterprises refresh for AI workloads, the campus and branch gear coming off lease has to go somewhere. The refurbished market is where it lands, and the arbitrage window is real. Refurbished hardware runs 50-60% cheaper than new, with performance that increasingly holds up under scrutiny.

The open question: AI infrastructure is the one place refurbished doesn't work yet. High-density switching and GPU interconnect hardware is too new and too scarce to have a meaningful secondary market. That gap will close, but not before 2028 at the earliest. Learn more about this here.

Learn more about this here.

🇦🇪 Starlink launches services in UAE and Kuwait, expanding Middle East satellite internet (Computer Weekly)

🔐 Versa extends SASE platform with Inbound SSE and Secure Enterprise Browser. (Network World)

☁️ Cloud group takes Broadcom VMware fight to European regulator (sdxcentral)

Catch up