NVIDIA is bringing the world’s first optimized Ethernet networking with co-packaged optics to AI factories, enabling scale-out and scale-across on the NVIDIA Rubin platform with NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics, the flagship switch for multi-trillion-parameter AI infrastructure.
This blog post explores key optimizations and innovations within the protocol and hardware of Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics that enable power-efficient, reliable, and resilient co-packaged optical networks for giga-scale AI factories.
How Ethernet for AI enables scalable training and inference on the NVIDIA Rubin Platform
Ultra-low-jitter Ethernet networking plays an important role in scaling AI factories, because it ensures consistent and reliable data transmission across your complete infrastructure. By minimizing jitter, AI systems can achieve efficient token throughput no matter batch size, which is crucial for handling diverse and demanding workloads. This ability supports seamless multi-tenancy inside a single AI factory, for multiple users and applications to operate concurrently without performance degradation.
It also improves the dispatch efficiency of models based on the Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture, enabling faster expert selection and improved overall model performance, as shown in Figure 1. Because of this, AI factories can operate at greater speed, reliability, and scalability.
Key innovations in Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics for AI factory optical interconnects
The Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics switch delivers performance improvements for AI factories through its co-packaged silicon photonic engines.Â
- Recent packaging and low-loss electro-optical channels offer 5x power reduction per 1.6 Tb/s port in comparison with pluggable interconnects.Â
- The co-packaged optical links sustain 5x longer link flap-free AI uptime in comparison with off-the-shelf Ethernet solutions, ensuring AI workloads run without interruption.
- 10x greater network resiliency provides unmatched robustness for mission-critical applications.
With these innovations, organizations can scale their AI infrastructure and increase performance per watt, supporting larger workloads while maintaining optimal energy efficiency, reliability, and network stability.
Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics is the world’s first fully integrated 512 lane 200G-capable co-packaged switch system. The introduction of the detachable fiber connector for surface-normal input/output (I/O) is an advancement within the assembly and scalability of high-performance Ethernet switches for AI factories. By enabling a totally automated process where optical fibers are attached at the ultimate stage using precision machinery, manufacturers can maximize production yield and throughput, streamlining large-scale deployment.Â
The surface-normal optical I/O architecture enables optical ports to scale without increasing the physical size of the switch package. This is particularly advantageous for top radix switches, which require quite a few connections inside a compact footprint to support expansive AI workloads.
The solder-reflow compatible optical engine can also be a breakthrough that integrates seamlessly with modern test and assembly tools. This compatibility enables full screening of optical components before attachment to the switch silicon, ensuring that only known-good engines are used, achieving a guaranteed 100% yield. The method advantages from pick-and-place automation and comprehensive pre-assembly testing, which together provide an efficient manufacturing pathway for these advanced switch systems.
The integrated shuffle mechanism throughout the quad-ASIC switch architectures is one other key innovation, enabling flat and efficient scaling of GPUs inside a single cluster. This topology eliminates the latency typically introduced by additional switching layers, maintaining optimal performance as clusters grow. The SN6800 switch delivers 409.6 Tb/s of total bandwidth across 512 ports of 800 Gb/s, or 2,048 ports of 200 Gb/s, using its integrated fiber shuffle and co-packaged silicon photonics to determine a space- and power-efficient Ethernet solution. These combined innovations equip AI factories with robust, scalable network infrastructure able to supporting next-generation artificial intelligence applications.
What’s next for AI factory networking innovation
This holistic codesign approach—with chips, systems, software, and AI models—enables the event of scalable, high-performance AI factories. Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics switches deliver ultra-low jitter networking for AI factories to grow in speed, reliability, and scalability, and establish robust infrastructure for next-generation applications. For more information, see the NVIDIA Silicon Photonics page.
