NewPhotonics and SoftBank team up on advanced photonics
The organisations are aiming to advance LPO, CPO, and all-optics switch fabric, targeting next-generation datacentres and addressing power consumption and capacity bottlenecks in AI cluster workloads
NewPhotonics has announced a new collaboration agreement with SoftBank Corporation, through which they aim to advance photonics for LPO, CPO, and all-optics switch fabric for AI-RAN in the datacentre.
The company says that this strategic partnership with the global technology provider is a significant milestone on its path to providing a new generation of energy-efficient and high-performance data transmission chips. By targeting improved GPU/CPU/switch fabric performance with PIC and low-latency optical connectivity, the joint initiative with SoftBank also addresses power consumption and capacity bottlenecks in AI cluster workloads.
According to NewPhotonics, its patented optical SerDes (serialiser/deserialiser) is critical to this photonics-electronics convergence, enabling higher density and low-latency data transfer in mobile fronthaul and datacentre processing.
The company adds that this announcement signals its contributions to the advancement of CPO with optical signal processing breakthroughs that address AI and high-performance compute demands, as well as representing its focus on customer-driven development that delivers in-demand market solutions.
Ryuji Wakikawa, head of SoftBank Research Institute of Advanced Technology, said: “We believe this partnership with NewPhotonics is necessary for next generation infrastructure. By collaborating, we envision a transformation in AI datacentre and mobile fronthaul infrastructure with optical-electronics convergence technologies that enhances speed, distance limit, capacity, and, most importantly, leads to sustainability gains giving SoftBank a significant advantage and market leadership.”
Yaniv Ben Haim, CEO of NewPhotonics, added: “Our new collaboration agreement with Softbank marks a significant milestone for our company and the industry to advance optical interconnect technology in CPO and pluggable that address the needs of modern compute and AI infrastructure. We remain committed to breaking the limits of optical communication with lowered latency and power at scalable distances. This partnership exemplifies our confidence in the impact of all-optical connectivity on the future of AI and 6G with our patented photonics innovations.”
