Cisco’s boldly nicknamed Internet for the Future routers, ASICs, and networking software will give Internet2’s cloud connect services and research network a boost, the two organizations announced.

Internet2 is a nonprofit whose members include Unites States’ universities, government agencies, and almost 60 corporations including tech giants like Cisco, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Oracle. It operates what it claims is the nation’s largest and fastest research and education network.

Under the network-upgrade agreement, Internet2 will deploy Cisco’s 8200 series routers that use Cisco Silicon One ASICs in 48 locations across the U.S. Each location will use between one and four devices, and a typical node that connects national backbone resources with regional networks has between 24 and 96 400 Gb/s network access ports.

Many of the Internet2 network’s intercity links will provide between 800 Gb/s and 2.4 Tb/s per second of bandwidth capacity, which Nick Michaelides, SVP of Cisco’s U.S. Public Sector Organization, says will better support big data researchers. “These range from High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider data flows to pandemic research among academic medical centers and global genomics databases, all with abundant bandwidth and significantly increased capacity,” he wrote in a blog post.

Cisco expects its new routing platform to reduce the total operating power used by Internet2’s packet platform by a minimum of 61% – a drop from 88,100 watts to 34,125 watts. This translates into environment benefits as well. On an annual basis, the proportional savings in kilowatt hours for direct power results in 334 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoidance. Additionally, Cisco says the new networking equipment requires 668 metric tons less power and cooling, while also providing four- to 12-times more capacity across the national footprint.

The upgrade will also use Cisco’s Network Services Orchestration (NSO) software for the network-wide automation platform that will deliver Internet2 services and eventually support campus-to-regional-to-national-to-cloud service orchestration.

Native 400 Gb/s wavelengths on Internet2’s optical network will interconnect the system between cities. Additionally, segment routing with multi-protocol label switching (SR-MPLS) and Ethernet virtual private network (EVPN) will allow researcher applications to eventually claim up to an entire 400 Gb/s link for a particular application while other network uses dynamically move to other paths.

As part of the agreement, Cisco also offers incentive programs for regional networks and campuses to adopt similar technologies for their own network upgrades.