CrossTalk Newsletter

AI compute gets all the attention.

Hyperscalers are committing tens of billions of dollars to GPUs. Commercial building developers are racing to integrate localized AI and smart automation. IT leaders across both data centers and enterprise facilities are facing the same fundamental question: Can our physical network infrastructure handle what comes next?

Recently, Leviton announced a $100 million investment in our manufacturing capacity for end-to-end copper and fiber systems. This significant investment builds directly on the success of our previous $80 million capital program completed in 2025.

In my years working at the forefront of technology and network infrastructure, I have rarely seen the physical layer under this level of simultaneous demand from multiple directions at once. That is precisely why we are accelerating and continuing major investments in our global business.

While many organizations remain cautious amid volatile raw material and energy costs, Leviton believes this is the right time to invest, ensuring our customers have access to the capacity, quality and global scale they need when they need it most.

Dual Infrastructure Realities: Extreme Cable Density, Dizzying Network Speeds and Imminent Labor Gaps

Whether managing a high-density data center or a modern commercial campus, infrastructure executives face the same parallel headwinds. Some stats from AFCOM’s 2026 State of the Data Center provide staggering context.

• Unprecedented Rack Density: Average rack density surged nearly 70% in a single year to 27 kW per rack, with 69% of operators expecting densities to climb even higher. Packing more computing into smaller footprints demands ultra-high-density optical patching with manageability.
• Workforce Gaps: 87% of operators report workforce gaps impacting daily operations. Finding specialized technicians to pull, terminate, test, trace and maintain thousands of cables, connection by connection, is putting multi-billion-dollar deployments behind schedule.
• Surging AI Workloads: 72% of data center operators expect AI workloads to increase capacity requirements this year. Enterprise environments are simultaneously adopting Wi-Fi 7, localized AI vision and advanced building management systems, all demanding high-speed, reliable fiber and copper backbones.

Why We Are Investing $100 Million Across Two Core Fronts

This investment targets two distinct but equally urgent infrastructure realities. First, in the hyperscale data center environment, AI workloads are pushing physical density and deployment schedules to new extremes. Second, in the enterprise smart building environment, aging infrastructure blocks the edge deployments required by an AI network’s expanded footprint. Different problems, same urgency, same commitment.

1. High-Density Data Center Systems and Workforce Relief

With 87% of operators struggling with labor shortages, this investment directly helps reduce some of the most challenging installation complexities installers face. Making installation, terminations and testing easier is the most effective way to minimize concerns over field labor shortages.

By expanding production of our 800G-ready STRATA™ fiber cabling systems, we are scaling our ability to deliver factory-tested, pre-terminated trunk assemblies that arrive on-site ready to deploy. Through our FastLane make-to-order program, our most popular fiber cassettes and cable assemblies ship in less than five business days, meaning installation crews spend their time connecting infrastructure, not building it from scratch on a live floor. The result is high-density fiber deployments completed up to 70% faster, with fewer specialized technicians required on-site.

Our dedicated data center design engineers take this a step further, acting as an extension of your engineering team to pre-optimize rack elevations, port counts and cable topologies before a single product ships. By the time material arrives, the plan is already locked.

2. Next-Generation Smart Buildings and Enterprise LANs

AI isn’t staying confined to cloud data centers. It is migrating to the edge. Every building is a smart building. But buildings need more than smarter systems. The physical infrastructure underneath was never designed for what modern operations require. The average commercial building in the U.S. is 53 years old according to an SMR research study. These buildings were not constructed for AI-driven capabilities. And when the network is not a solution, it becomes a barrier to progress and productivity.

One of the most persistent and underestimated constraints is distance. As IP devices multiply across larger footprints, we want more flexibility in where these things can be located, including security cameras or blue light phones in the parking lot or wireless access points in remote areas of a warehouse. Standard copper networking has a 100-meter limit, a rule set for a world of compact buildings and centralized telecom closets. As campuses expand, remote devices require connectivity and a 100-meter limitation becomes a design constraint driving additional infrastructure, added complexity, and unnecessary cost facility teams cannot absorb.

In April 2026, Leviton announced the PARADIGM™ Extended Distance System, purpose-built to address this exact challenge. Powered by Stadion outdoor cable and delivering 1G Ethernet and PoE up to 225 meters, PARADIGM enables organizations to connect outdoor IP cameras, wireless access points, access control systems and IoT devices across real-world campus environments without rebuilding their infrastructure from the ground up.

At the 2026 BICSI Winter Conference, we demonstrated a live 200-meter channel delivering power and data to a high-definition security camera, not in a controlled lab but in a real-world system configuration mirroring what facility teams actually encounter on site. That validation matters because infrastructure decisions made today will carry these buildings through the next decade of AI and smart building demands.

This investment directly scales our ability to manufacture and deliver solutions like PARADIGM alongside our Cat 6A and fiber infrastructure, as well as our OneReach™ systems which can deliver power and data up to 10,000 feet.

The goal is the same in both environments. Our customers should be able to modernize their physical facilities in lockstep with their digital strategies, without the infrastructure itself becoming an obstacle.

Building What’s Next for Your Network

Capital investments like these are not just about adding capacity. They are about building long-term capability and service. Our customers are planning infrastructure for decades of AI-driven growth and productivity. We’re matching that vision with the foresight to invest in world-class manufacturing, even in challenging market conditions.

With 120 years of company history and 60 years of dedicated network innovation, we know the leaders in any technology cycle are the ones who build for the next one.