How Hexatronic’s Modular DCS Designs Support Low-Latency Needs
Central Texas is known for the Hill Country ranch land and longhorn silhouettes, to fields of blooming bluebonnets lining Austin’s highways. But today, a new symbol is rising alongside those classics: an explosive tech boom that’s fueling demand for next-generation edge data centers across the region.
Server racks and autonomous vehicles have become the newest symbols of the state as a tech stampede over the past five years has attracted more than 5,500 startups and major technology companies, including Oracle and Tesla, to the greater Austin area.
“Central Texas now has the most data center space under construction of all secondary markets tracked by CBRE, and the fourth most among all markets,” reported CBRE. “If the region’s in-progress construction was completed tomorrow, the combined Austin/San Antonio market would become the second largest data center market in the country, trailing only behind Northern Virginia.”
This Austin tech boom is driving unprecedented demand for edge data centers in Central Texas, with vacancy rates at a record-low 1.8 percent and 96 percent of under-construction capacity already preleased.
“Between 2023 and 2024, Central Texas, particularly around Austin and San Antonio, witnessed a four-fold increase in data center construction,” says the Texas Real Estate Research Center.
The low-latency needs of these new edge data centers require infrastructure that can deploy quickly and scale efficiently; capabilities delivered through Hexatronic's modular Data Center Solutions (DCS) designs, fiber cable, and connectivity products manufactured right here in Texas.
Tesla and Oracle Fuel Austin’s Tech Boom
Austin's tech hub status has been incubating for some 40 years. Since Dell's founding in the mid-1980s, says Built In Texas, Austin has evolved into what locals call "Silicon Hills": a nod to California's Silicon Valley and the rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country.
Major tech players, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco, IBM, Apple, eBay, Oracle, and Facebook, all established operations in the region.
Oracle moved its headquarters from Redwood City, California, to Austin in December 2020, and a year later, Tesla followed suit, relocating its headquarters to Austin in December 2021.
Perhaps no one has had a greater tech impact on Texas than the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who, since 2020, has consolidated his business empire in the state, moving the headquarters of SpaceX, Tesla, X, and The Boring Company to Texas.
Tesla's rapid adoption of AI, robotics, and electric vehicle manufacturing, highlighted by the company's Gigafactory outside Austin, the second-largest building by volume in the world, is driving enormous demand for local processing capacity.
A $440 million data center rising in Bastrop County near Austin, spanning the size of 10 football fields, is just one of many data center projects underway in Central Texas.
The buildout of these facilities not only accommodates Tesla's own needs but also catalyzes contractors and cloud infrastructure partners, expanding the region's overall digital backbone.
Oracle is equally invested in Texas data center infrastructure. In partnership with OpenAI and SoftBank, Oracle is developing the flagship Stargate AI infrastructure campus in Abilene, Texas, part of a $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment to U.S. AI infrastructure.
The Stargate initiative includes multiple Texas sites, with Oracle and OpenAI entering an agreement to develop up to 4.5 gigawatts of additional capacity, representing more than $300 billion in investment over five years.
“AI can only fulfill its promise if we build the compute to power it. That compute is the key to ensuring everyone can benefit from AI and to unlocking future breakthroughs,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Edge Data Centers Deploying Rapidly Along the I-35 Corridor
As Austin's tech sector explodes, data centers are racing to get within a dozen miles of end users. The region surrounding Austin, including the I-35 corridor, suburbs, and smaller cities, is witnessing the rapid deployment of edge data centers designed to meet the demands of the city's digital transformation.
Austin's growing tech industry and fast population increase have led to a high demand for data processing and low-latency computing resources. Hyperscalers, AI providers, cloud platforms, and SaaS vendors all require scalable, distributed infrastructure located closer to users and devices instead of relying only on centralized facilities hundreds of miles away.
Why Latency Matters at the Edge
This proximity is important because edge data centers support fast, localized processing with high reliability and low latency needed for time-sensitive applications. Machine learning models, real-time analytics, IoT device networks, and AI workloads all improve when compute resources are closer to where data is generated.
For healthcare providers running diagnostic imaging AI, educational institutions deploying interactive learning platforms, or enterprises managing smart building systems, milliseconds of latency reduction can significantly impact performance and user experience.
Several operators are intentionally placing modular data centers throughout the greater Austin area to meet the needs of education, healthcare, enterprise, and government sectors. Duos Edge AI, for example, is deploying facilities strategically located to reduce the distance between compute resources and end users, reflecting a larger industry trend toward distributed infrastructure that supports the region's expanding digital economy.
Behind the Numbers: The physics of fiber optics set hard latency limits. Signals travel at approximately 5 microseconds per kilometer in single-mode fiber. A centralized data center in Dallas (300+ km from Austin) adds at least 1.5-3 ms of round-trip latency just from distance. Edge facilities within 20 km cut this to under 0.2 ms, a meaningful difference for AI inference, real-time analytics, and interactive applications.
Hexatronic’s Modular DCS Designs Support Low-Latency Needs
Hexatronic's Data Center Systems (DCS) modular designs directly address the speed, performance, and scalability challenges facing edge data center operators in high-growth markets like Austin.
The company's pre-engineered fiber infrastructure solutions enable faster deployments while maintaining the deterministic performance that low-latency applications demand.
- Accelerated Deployment: Pre-terminated, plug-and-play fiber architectures eliminate time-consuming on-site terminations. Hexatronic's factory-terminated trunks and cassettes arrive ready to install, enabling operators to bring compute resources online faster, which is critical when racing to serve expanding markets. The standardized, modular approach simplifies installation, reduces labor requirements, and creates repeatable builds across multiple edge locations throughout the I-35 corridor.
- Hexatronic’s Air-Blown Fiber (ABD) Systems: For operators adding capacity or expanding into new sectors, Hexatronic's Air-Blown Fiber (ABF) systems (including the Stingray product line) enable rapid fiber installation with minimal disruption. Rather than pulling traditional cable, technicians blow lightweight fiber through pre-installed microducts on demand. This approach dramatically reduces installation time and eliminates the splice points that add latency and potential failure points, making it ideal for fast edge buildouts near 5G towers and metro aggregation nodes.
- Performance and Reliability: Factory-terminated modules and high-density frames minimize field splicing and reduce the number of connection points in each link. Fewer interconnects mean lower signal loss and less performance variability, which is essential for maintaining the tight latency budgets required by AI inference workloads and real-time analytics.
- Multi-Site Consistency: Hexatronic delivers complete data center fiber systems, from initial consultation and design through pre-engineered panels, frames, and installation support. This end-to-end approach allows operators to deploy consistent infrastructure across multiple Central Texas edge sites.
Partner with Hexatronic for Edge Infrastructure
As Austin's digital economy expands and edge data centers proliferate along the I-35 corridor, network infrastructure must deliver the speed, reliability, and scalability these facilities demand.
Hexatronic’s modular DCS designs provide the pre-engineered fiber solutions that enable rapid deployment while delivering low-latency performance.
Contact Hexatronic today to discuss how our modular DCS solutions can accelerate your Central Texas deployments.
