NVIDIA is investing in optical circuit switching (OCS) technology to enable the next generation of AI networks, which may require hundreds or thousands of accelerators per system. This technology, reminiscent of old telephone switchboards, allows for light-based switching rather than packet switching, offering greater flexibility and efficiency. Google has already utilized OCS in its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) clusters to manage large compute domains and hot-swap accelerators. Startups like iPronics are developing advanced OCS with silicon photonics for faster reconfiguration times and higher port densities, attracting significant investment from companies like NVIDIA. AI
IMPACT Enables higher density and more efficient AI compute clusters, potentially accelerating the development of more powerful AI systems.
RANK_REASON Significant investment in enabling infrastructure for future AI hardware.
- Broadcom
- Coherent
- iPronics Programmable Photonics (Spain)
- Light Street Capital
- Lumentum
- Marvell Technology
- Maverick Silicon
- NVIDIA
- Marvell Teralynx
- Optical circuit switching (OCS)
- Tomahawk
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