Jensen Huang Founder, President and CEO at NVIDIA | Official website
NVIDIA has introduced its new Spectrum-X and Quantum-X silicon photonics networking switches, designed to connect millions of GPUs across AI factories while reducing energy use and operational costs. The announcement was made at the GTC event.
The integration of electronic circuits with optical communications marks a significant advancement for NVIDIA. These photonics switches are touted as the most advanced networking solution globally, promising improved power efficiency, signal integrity, network resiliency, and faster deployment compared to traditional methods.
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, stated: “AI factories are a new class of data centers 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 platform offers enhanced performance with increased bandwidth density suitable for large-scale AI operations. It includes configurations such as 128 ports of 800Gb/s or 512 ports of 200Gb/s, delivering up to 400Tb/s total throughput.
Meanwhile, the Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand switches feature a liquid-cooled design for efficient cooling and offer twice the speed and five times higher scalability than previous models.
NVIDIA's ecosystem partners include companies like TSMC, Browave, Coherent, Corning Incorporated, Fabrinet, Foxconn, Lumentum, SENKO, SPIL, Sumitomo Electric Industries, and TFC Communication. C.C. Wei from TSMC commented on their collaboration: “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.”
The availability timeline indicates that Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand switches will be available later this year while Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switches are expected in 2026.
Further details can be explored through sessions at the ongoing NVIDIA GTC event until March 21.
