ZTE said on Monday it has formed a strategic partnership with Sacofa – a telecoms infrastructure provider in East Malaysia owned by the Sarawak government – to modernise its fibre infrastructure network.

Under the deal, Sacofa will upgrade its core transport, routing, and optical layers with ZTE's solutions with the goal of establishing a resilient foundation for long-term network availability and performance.

Among other things, ZTE will supply its optical transport network technologies, which it says supports 1.6-Tbps throughput with AI-driven network control for better reliability and spectrum efficiency.

The core transport network solution also includes ZTE’s 6-in-1 EDN (enhanced deterministic networking) processor, which the vendor says supports high-speed forwarding with guaranteed low latency and jitter-resilient performance for real-time applications.

Sacofa MD Sulaiman Abdul Rahman B Abdul Taib said the solutions will enable scalable bandwidth delivery, elevate service-level performance, and optimize operational efficiency, which will also be a major boost for Sarawak's connectivity and digital ambitions.

“By modernizing the network infrastructure, Sacofa is positioned to transform increased capacity and reliability into economic growth and enhanced operational readiness,” he said in a statement.

“Through this collaboration, we are delivering a future-proof digital backbone that enables 5G, cloud, and AI-driven services, supporting Sarawak's 2030 vision for a dynamic, inclusive digital economy,” added ZTE Malaysia MD Steven Ge.

The Sarawak state government acquired a majority stake in Sacofa via its subsidiary SFS Incorporated in April this year, according to the Borneo Post.

Sacofa runs over 1,688 towers – including 438 towers under the Universal Service Provision (USP) – and more than 12,000 km of fibre across urban and rural areas in Sarawak, the report said.