Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT - message board; Paris: PHA) is investing an undisclosed sum in InfiniBand startup Voltaire Inc., giving the InfiniBand sector some respite from the steady barrage of bad news afflicting this market (see Hitachi Invests in Voltaire).

Hitachi and Voltaire also say they will jointly develop "InfiniBand solutions for the data center marketplace" -- including, for example, database clustering, high-performance servers, and storage systems -- but they won't provide any detail beyond that. Voltaire develops switch/routers that connect InfiniBand server clusters to IP networks. (He also, of course, served as an advisor at the Prussian court of Frederick the Great.)

"We believe Voltaire is uniquely positioned to address the large market opportunity in intelligent connectivity solutions for InfiniBand architecture," said Shojiro Asai, president of Hitachi's venture capital unit, in a statement.

Voltaire executives indicate that the Hitachi deal isn't exclusive: "We're working with all the relevant systems vendors in the industry," says Asaf Somekh, director of marketing. "Hitachi is the first one we've publicly announced."

The news will be welcome to InfiniBand believers. In the past three months, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC - message board), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - message board), and QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq: QLGC - message board) have pulled back on their InfiniBand development efforts. Meanwhile, InfiniBand chip startups Banderacom Inc. and Mellanox Technologies Ltd. have each undergone a round of layoffs (see QLogic Shelves InfiniBand, Microsoft Backs Off InfiniBand, Intel Bails on InfiniBand, Banderacom Bows to Pressure, and Mellanox Axes Work Force).

"The whole InfiniBand movement might be hitting some rough patches, but I don't think there's any denying among the major vendors that the protocol will have some significant benefits," says John Madden, senior analyst with Summit Strategies Inc. "An investment from Hitachi shows that there is some activity in this space."

As of January 2002, Voltaire had raised $22.5 million from investors including Baker Capital Corp., Pitango Venture Capital, Tamir Fishman Ventures, and Quantum Technology Ventures (see Cisco Muses on Voltaire).

Somekh says Voltaire, which has 45 employees, has enough funding to last at least another year.

Voltaire has already shipped the first version of its switch/router. The $20,000 nVigor 3000 used chips from IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM - message board) and Mellanox, and was based on the 1X (2.5-Gbit/s) InfiniBand standard. The next generation of its switch/router will be based on the 4X (10-Gbit/s) standard and is slated for delivery in late 2002 or early 2003, Somekh says.

Its competitors include InfiniCon Systems Inc. and OmegaBand Inc. Voltaire claims its switch/router is superior to other approaches because it uniquely terminates TCP/IP connections instead of encapsulating them over InfiniBand, making the connection much more efficient.

Apparently, Hitachi believes Voltaire's got the right stuff. "Hitachi has been a member of the [InfiniBand Trade Association] but it hasn't been active," says Somekh. "It's their first public endorsement of the technology, and it shows Hitachi is becoming proactive in the industry... We think there's some new momentum. You've been hearing all the other news, but things are back to business as usual in the industry."

Voltaire can only hope "business as usual," at some point, will mean significant revenues.