Ayar Labs, Wiwynn to cram 1,024 GPUs into photonic system

"Looking at the current racks, you're forced to have everything in that one rack. You're forced to have GPUs there, you're forced to have CPUs there. You're forced to have switches, just because copper doesn't take you that far. Copper is one of the reasons that racks, like Nvidia's 600 kilowatt Vera Rubin Ultra systems, keep getting hotter."

"Ayar aims to sidestep this issue by co-packaging the optics with the compute, dramatically reducing the power consumption compared to pluggables while boosting reach and bandwidth by a factor of up to 3x. At Super Computing last fall, a prototype designed in collaboration with Alchip featured eight of Ayar's TeraPHY optical engines boasting more than 100 Tbps of bandwidth."

Ayar Labs, a silicon photonics startup, is partnering with ODM Wywinn to create a reference platform capable of connecting more than 1,024 GPUs into a unified system using optical interconnects instead of traditional copper connections. The key advantage is dramatically reduced power consumption, with the system expected to use 100-200 kilowatts per rack compared to 600+ kilowatts for current systems like Nvidia's Vera Rubin Ultra. By co-packaging optics with compute, Ayar achieves superior reach and bandwidth while maintaining efficiency. Copper interconnects are limited by signal degradation over distance and generate excessive heat, whereas optical solutions can extend reach and increase bandwidth by up to 3x. The platform design allows multiple racks to be connected together, enabling scalability beyond single-rack constraints.

Read at Theregister