Faced with the health crisis and the related economic consequences, the French government has rolled out support measures as part of its France Relance (literally France Revival) plan. Various measures have been introduced to support investment in the French industry and exceptional financial resources have been mobilized.
As part of this plan, Ekinops, which responded in early 2021 to a call for specific projects dedicated to the electronics industry, has been allocated €3.6 million in the form of a government subsidy to support the development of its NGOpt project.
The goal of this project is to develop new generation high-speed optical transport solutions, together with a network management solution embedding Artificial Intelligence, to reduce the sector’s dependence on Asian suppliers. The NGOpt project rolled out by Ekinops aims to strengthen the French group’s position in the optical transport sector and to gain in independence and sovereignty for the supply of transport networks for 5G traffic and beyond.
Vincent Munière, group CTO and VP R&D at Ekinops commented:
“This funding has been granted at an ideal time for us to support our technological ambitions and confirm our status as a leading French player in the telecommunications sector with a strong national and European base.
With these funds, we will be able to rapidly implement large-scale innovative projects to offer telecom operators and businesses WDM and OTN optical transport solutions designed and assembled in France which are more compact and more efficient in terms of energy performance, enabling Ekinops to address new markets.
Furthermore, this funding will also contribute to reach our target of tripling sales of optical transport solutions within five years, which we set for ourselves in 2019 when we acquired the OTN technology. With +26% growth for this product line in H1 2021 and over €10 million revenue in optical transport solutions in a single quarter for the first time in Q2 2021, we are on the right track! ”