McKay Brothers partners with Relativity Networks on hollow core fiber for New Jersey financial services

McKay Brothers has partnered with Relativity Networks to develop and expand hollow core fiber networks for financial services and growing compute demand.

The initial focus will be key financial-market locations in New Jersey, with plans to expand into other markets.

Hollow core fiber for low-latency networks

Florida-based Relativity Networks develops hollow core fiber (HCF), which is designed with an air-filled central channel surrounded by a ring of glass tubes. This structure can support higher capacity, reduce chromatic dispersion, and allow light to travel faster than in conventional glass fiber.

HCF is not generally expected to replace traditional single-mode fiber. Instead, it is intended for performance-critical routes, including connections between hyperscaler and neoscaler AI infrastructure sites, data centers, AI training and inference clusters, cloud regions, financial trading locations, and major network hubs. The technology can also support ultra-low-latency enterprise applications.

For the McKay Brothers partnership, the immediate target is the financial services market.

Relativity Networks has been developing its ChronoCore hollow core fiber, which has also been used by Colt Technology Services. The company says ChronoCore HCF cable allows data to travel approximately 47 percent faster than through conventional glass fiber, reducing network latency.

McKay Brothers plans to use the technology for dedicated dark-fiber-pair indefeasible rights of use (IRUs), as well as managed connectivity services ranging from 10Gbps to 400Gbps.

“We have worked with successive generations of hollow core fiber for nearly a decade. Relativity offers the best technical solution we have evaluated for the networks we want to build,” said Tim Boyle, chief operating officer of McKay Brothers. “For critical US market infrastructure, IP provenance and security of supply matter alongside performance. Relativity’s strong US patent portfolio and roadmap, enabled by Prysmian’s proprietary fiber and cable production, give us the confidence to invest for the long term. New Jersey is just the start.”

Production and commercial expansion

Relativity’s ChronoCore HCF is produced at Prysmian’s facility in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The cable is assembled at Prysmian’s plant in Claremont, North Carolina, while couplers, fiber characterization, and installation training are handled in Orlando, Florida.

Relativity Networks has worked closely with Italian optical cable manufacturer Prysmian. In July, the companies said they had produced their highest-density HCF cable to date.

“McKay brings nearly a decade of experience putting hollow core fiber to work in demanding environments, from data centers and outside plant to towers and integrated fiber-wireless networks,” said Jason Eichenholz, founder and CEO of Relativity Networks.

“That experience spans the routes and real estate needed to build and operate networks. That makes McKay the right partner to develop this opportunity with us and serve the growing infrastructure needs of AI inference. McKay’s partnership and purchase mark an important commercial milestone for Relativity and provide a foundation for expanding financial-market networks and advancing the network infrastructure of the AI economy together.”