Ciena Corp., a provider of high-speed connectivity, said Sept. 22 that it agreed to buy New Providence-based Nubis Communications, a privately held company, for $270 million in an all-cash transaction.
As part of the agreement, Ciena will make employee retention arrangements in connection with the transaction. Ciena is bringing on 50 Nubis staff members. The deal has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies as well as Nubis’ shareholders. The transaction is expected to close during Ciena’s fiscal fourth quarter 2025.
The addition of Nubis, which specializes in high-performance, compact, low-power optical and electrical interconnects tailored to support AI workloads, will expand Ciena’s portfolio and add talent to address a wider range of opportunities inside the data center.
Nubis’ solutions complement Ciena’s existing high-speed interconnects portfolio and will enable new capabilities to support growing AI workloads by significantly increasing scale up and scale out capacity and density inside the data center. The Nubis portfolio includes two key technologies:
- Co-packaged optics (CPO) / near packaged optics (NPO): Nubis’ compact, high-density optical modules deliver ultra-fast data transfer using light instead of traditional electrical signals. These modules are optimized for low-latency, low-power operation – making them ideal for scaling AI systems. Combined with Ciena’s high-speed SerDes, Nubis’ optical engines enable differentiated CPO solutions to address high-performance connectivity needs inside and between racks.
- Electrical ACC: Nubis’ advanced analog electronics enable active copper cables (ACC) to support high-speed data transmission, allowing data to travel up to 4 meters at speeds of 200 Gb/s per lane. This low-power, low-latency solution helps customers connect more AI accelerators across racks without the limitations of traditional copper or digital signal processing-based solutions.
In addition, the acquisition will strengthen Ciena’s expertise inside the data center, with the addition of more than 50 engineers with technical expertise and strong cultural alignment with Ciena’s R&D team.
“The acquisition of Nubis represents a significant step forward in Ciena’s strategy to address the rapidly growing demand for scalable, high-performance connectivity inside the data center, driven by the explosive growth of AI-related traffic,” said David Rothenstein, chief strategy officer at Ciena.
“With ownership of these key technologies for a wider range of use cases inside the data center, we are expanding our competitive advantage by advancing development of differentiated solutions, reducing development costs, and driving long-term efficiency and profitability.”
Dan Harding, CEO of Nubis, said, “Together, we will advance Ciena’s data center strategy by delivering reliable, high-quality, and high-performance interconnect solutions to support the next generation of AI workloads.”
Shares of Ciena have climbed 62.8% year to date as of 9:36 a.m. Sept. 22 and are trading at $137.47 on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has a market cap of $19.5 billion.
