NVIDIA unveils new silicon photonics networking solutions

NVIDIA has announced the introduction of its Spectrum-X and Quantum-X silicon photonics networking switches, designed to enhance the efficiency and scalability of AI factories by enabling connections among millions of GPUs while significantly reducing energy usage.

The new networking solutions integrate optics innovations to provide a power efficiency improvement of 3.5 times, increase signal integrity by 63 times, and enhance network resiliency by 10 times compared to traditional networking methods.

These advancements also facilitate faster deployment, offering 1.3 times quicker setup.

Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, commented on the development: "AI factories are a new class of data centres with extreme scale, and networking infrastructure must be reinvented to keep pace.

By integrating silicon photonics directly into switches, NVIDIA is shattering the old limitations of hyperscale and enterprise networks and opening the gate to million-GPU AI factories."

The Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet and NVIDIA Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand platforms incorporate silicon photonics networking switches. The Spectrum-X Ethernet platform provides increased bandwidth density by 1.6 times compared to traditional Ethernet, catering to multi-tenant and hyperscale AI factories, including the largest supercomputers globally.

Spectrum-X Photonics switches are available in various configurations, including 128 ports of 800Gb/s or 512 ports of 200Gb/s, achieving a total bandwidth of 100Tb/s. There is also an option for 512 ports of 800Gb/s or 2,048 ports of 200Gb/s, reaching a capability of 400Tb/s throughput.

The Quantum-X Photonics switches feature 144 ports of 800Gb/s InfiniBand, utilising a 200Gb/s SerDes design and employing a liquid-cooled system to effectively cool the onboard silicon photonics. These switches offer twice the speed and five times higher scalability for AI compute fabrics compared to the previous generation.

According to C. C. Wei, Chairman and CEO of TSMC, "A new wave of AI factories requires efficiency and minimal maintenance to achieve the scale required for next-generation workloads."

"TSMC's silicon photonics solution combines our strengths in both cutting-edge chip manufacturing and TSMC-SoIC 3D chip stacking to help NVIDIA unlock an AI factory's ability to scale to a million GPUs and beyond, pushing the boundaries of AI."

NVIDIA's silicon photonics ecosystem encompasses industry leaders such as TSMC, Browave, Coherent, Corning Incorporated, Fabrinet, Foxconn, Lumentum, SENKO, SPIL, Sumitomo Electric Industries, and TFC Communication, which collectively contribute to the integrated silicon and optics process and supply chain.

The introduction of pluggable optical transceiver technologies is expected to further stimulate growth in state-of-the-art AI factories, with support from industry partners including Coherent, Eoptolink, Fabrinet, and Innolight.

The NVIDIA Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand switches are anticipated to become available later this year, while the Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switches are projected for release in 2026 across various infrastructure and system vendors.