Application of C-Light Optical Module in AI Computing Power and Data Center

Posted on：September 1, 2024 by C-LIGHT

In 2024, the computing power innovation led by NVIDIA in the United States entered an explosive change and evolution. Global AI computing industry and the traditional data center industry are undergoing a deep transformation. The long-awaited artificial intelligence industry has really entered the era of commercialization. This is an ongoing rapid upgrading and marketization of the emerging industry ecology.

As a company focusing on the optical communication industry all the year round, C-Light Network is also excited and delighted by such a rapid upgrade of the industry. The company's main optical communication modules QSFP-DD, OSFP112, QSFP28 and other high-speed optical modules play a role in this far-reaching industry change. What about the characters?

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the intelligence displayed by the machine, that is, the computer simulates the functions of the human brain based on big data. Such as reasoning, visual recognition, semantic understanding, learning ability, planning and decision-making ability. ChatGPT is a typical representative of artificial intelligence applications, which needs strong computing power support behind its operation. According to the hardware composition of computing power, It mainly includes AI chips, servers, switches, optical modules, connecting optical fiber cabling and IDC cabinets.

In 2019, Nvidia acquired Mellanox, an Israeli chip and switch manufacturer. The latter's strong products are InfiniBand ( "IB") and Ethernet switches. This has helped Nvidia become the dominant player in the GPU industry in the three AI computing hardware devices, namely, AI chips, servers and switches.

C-Light 800G OSFP/QSFP-DD SR4 SR8 DR4 FR4 LR4 AOC DAC optical modules have the advantages of low latency, high speed, supporting InfiniBand, good versatility, high cost-performance, and can be customized and upgraded. It is very suitable for the needs of computing power engineers, communication equipment dealers and computing power operators.

Data Center Network

In traditional data center network applications, such as the recently popular flat "Leaf-Spine" network structure. Leaf-Spine mainstream architecture has been upgraded to 200g/400g, and 800g is on the way. 400G DWDM Long Distance Coherent Modules ZR+, SR8 DR4 FR4 and 100G SR4 LR4 PSM4 for optical networks also has quite a few applications and excellent compatibility performance.

Looking forward to the future, the explosive growth of cloud data center traffic will drive the continuous upgrading and acceleration of the opening rate of optical modules. It took 5 years for 10G ports to iterate to 40G ports, and only 3 years for 100G ports to upgrade to 400G ports! In the future, all the export data of the data center will need to go through internal massive computing (especially the internal flow/export flow of AI, VR and other applications rise), the rapid increase of data transmission within the data center, and the flattening of the data center architecture. The optical module market of 100g, 200g and 400g data centers will continue to grow at a high speed. C-Light network will also keep up with the time. Binging forth new ideas to provide more featured optical module products for the majority of AI computing customers and data center customers.