Relativity Networks has secured $6.1 million in seed funding to support its development of hollow core fiber (HCF) cables for data centers.

The company, which earlier this year raised $4.6 million in a previous pre-seed round, is pushing to develop next-generation fiber technology to support the demands of AI data center operators.

In total, the company has now raised $10.7m this year.

The latest seed funding includes participation from Prysmian, GOVO Ventures, plus a group of new and previous investors who invested in Relativity's pre-seed round, noted the company.

Relativity previously announced a partnership with Prysmian in March for the mass production of HCF and cabling.

HCF features an air-filled center channel that is surrounded by a ring of glass tubes, akin to a honeycomb pattern. The design allows for higher capacity with minimized chromatic dispersion.

Traditional fiber-optic cables have typically limited data centers to within 60 kilometers (37 miles) of power providers - or to one another - due to latency constraints, however, HCF extends this range to 90 kilometers (56 miles), claims Relativity.

"This investment represents a pivotal milestone in Relativity Networks' mission to address two of the most urgent infrastructure challenges of the AI revolution – latency and access to power," said Relativity Networks founder and CEO Jason Eichenholz.

"As data centers face unprecedented energy demands and latency requirements, our hollow core fiber technology delivers the critical infrastructure backbone needed to support this exponential growth. This funding – along with our continued partnership with Prysmian – allows us to accelerate our ability to meet the surging demand for infrastructure that can handle AI's massive computational requirements."

Eichenholz has previously told DCD that the development of the technology is the sort of opportunity the telecoms industry only gets every 50 years or so.

HCF can transmit data nearly 50 percent faster when compared with the conventional fiber-optic cable long in use by the data industry. On top of this, it enables data to travel 1.5 times further without impacting the latency that can throw intricate multi-location data operations and applications out of sync.

"Hollow core fiber will be essential for building the digital infrastructure needed for the AI economy to flourish, and we're excited to strengthen our partnership with Relativity through this investment," added Frederick Persson, EVP digital solutions, Prysmian. "Our work together plays an essential role in bringing hollow core fiber to market at scale through our global co-manufacturing expertise."

Although it's not a new technology, interest in this area has grown vastly in recent years. In 2022, Microsoft acquired UK-based Lumenisity Limited, a manufacturer of HCF solutions.

Lumenisity was formed in 2017 as a spin-off from the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton to commercialize its HCF technologies. The company has raised £12.5 million ($15.5m). euNetworks was a customer, while BT had conducted trials with the fiber firm. It recently opened a 40,000 sq ft (3,716 sqm) HCF manufacturing facility in Romsey, UK.