Fujitsu to Open European APN Lab

Fujitsu Limited, a technology company, plans to establish an open all-photonics network (APN) lab in Düsseldorf, Germany, from November 2024 to March 2025. The goal of the lab is to further the adoption of APNs and promote the expansion of the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) initiative. The open APN lab comes as part of a contract gained from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to conduct field trials towards the overseas deployment of APNs in Europe.

Fujitsu’s Düsseldorf subsidiary Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH. Courtesy of Fujitsu Limited.

Open APNs facilitate the connection of multivendor products and solutions while also providing high capacity, low latency, and low power consumption. A new IOWN service is planned to be introduced in Japan at the start of the 2025 fiscal year. The company expects that APNs will become more widespread because of the service.

Network carriers, data center operators, and vendors will be able to use the lab to verify APN functionality and multivendor connectivity beginning in November until the lab closes in March 2025. Following the lab’s close, Fujitsu plans to conduct field trials and further expand its APN labs globally, including in North America.