The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is inviting bids to run its new data network, AiNET.

The system is intended to replace the firm’s aging Datacom-NG network. Separate bids will be invited for the roles of integrator, technology supplier, and service provider, with contracts for works and maintenance periods included with the winning companies.

The works contract will commence in Q2 2027, while the maintenance agreement will start when the system is partially commissioned in Q1 2028 and run for a decade, said the SBB in its tender. New data center and cloud infrastructure will also be commissioned, the firm added. DCD has approached SBB for comment.

SBB’s existing network is comprised of a transmission network and ancillary access networks that, it said, “ensure IP connectivity via [a] wired network or WLAN.”

AiNET, it said, will replace components that have reached the end of their service life, undergirding applications critical to the operation of the Swiss railway network, such as train control, dispatch systems, and railway radio.

“A disruption in the data network can therefore have a direct impact on train operations,” wrote SBB. “Depending on the severity and duration of the disruption, it can also be relevant to the national economy (in terms of rail transport being part of Switzerland’s critical infrastructure.”

The upgrade is part of a wider attempt by SBB to optimize its operations, with no more physical space available in Switzerland for the railway network to expand. In an interview in 2024, the firm’s CIO, Jochen Decker, explained how SBB was exploring the use of AI in predictive maintenance of its rolling stock and track, operations management, and route optimization. In November 2025, the firm also commissioned Siemens Mobility to digitise 500 interlocking signal apparatuses over the next two decades using its Signaling X platform. This would see “interlocking logic…intelligently shifted to central data centers,” said Siemens Mobility’s CEO Michael Peter, thereby increasing the railway network’s capacity and reliability.

In other tender news, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has invited bids to run its data center services.

The government department is to engage a provider to replace its aging SECO TC data center with an equivalent possessing Tier IV resiliency – the highest grade possible – located no more than 25 kilometers from its second facility in the Swiss capital, Bern.

“Furthermore, the data center must be able to offer up to 32 standard racks in two fire compartments,” it said. No information was available on the contract’s duration, date of execution, or the eligibility criteria for bidders. DCD has reached out to the secretariat for comment.

Learn more about the data center market in Switzerland and the wider DACH region, and meet with other executives and experts at the DCN Zurich event later this year.