At the OCP 2023 event,Thad Omura, SVP of Business and Corporate Development at Astera Labs, discussed the company's advancements in scaling AI platforms and cloud infrastructure, including enabling PCI Express infrastructure to scale with increasing GPUs and AI accelerators. Astera Labs has also partnered with Lenovo and AMD to offer unprecedented memory capacity using their CXL memory expanders, and showcased their industry-leading ethernet retim used for active electrical cases, allowing high-speed connectivity in the rack and from switch to switch.
2023 OCP Global Summit Showcase
The Open Compute Project held its annual OCP Global Summit at the San Jose Convention Center from October 17th to 19th, 2023. This year's theme was "Scaling Innovation Through Collaboration". The NextGenInfra team was on site to grab the latest intelligence on disaggregated and open ecosystems for the data center and edge, and this showcase captures highlights from the show floor. We appreciate our ongoing partnership with OCP and thank them for letting us capture video at the event. Check out thought leaders from the show talking about the latest in networking, optical, cooling, data center technologies.
While you're here, feel free to check out our 2023 report on data center networking and infrastructure acceleration talking about AI fabrics, SmartNICs/IPUs/DPUs, CXL and other connectivity technologies.
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Transforming Data Centers with PCIe, CXL and Ethernet
OCP Global Summit Highlights from Industry Thought Leaders
The following media comprises interviews and other content related to 2023 OCP Global Summit held in San Jose. Views expressed are those of the presenting individuals and companies and may not necessarily represent views of Converge! Network Digest or AvidThink.
Three Key Findings for AI Data Centers
Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst at 650 Group, emphasized the need for server base refreshment to meet AI server power requirements and the growing interest in liquid cooling solutions for server heat management at a recent technology show. He also highlighted the increasing influence of AI on server and data center designs, likening its potential impact to the democratization of compute by the Open Compute Project (OCP) a decade ago, while expressing skepticism towards immersion cooling due to its data center limitations.
AI Efficiency and Scalability
Sean Varley, VP of Product Marketing at Ampere, addressed the shift in focus at the OCP Summit from traditional equipment suppliers to AI, which is becoming a significant workload in data centers. To tackle the challenges of proprietary technologies in AI deployment, Ampere announced the formation of an AI Platform Alliance, aiming to unite vendors in creating open technology platforms for AI acceleration, emphasizing efficiency and sustainability.
Transforming Data Centers with PCIe, CXL and Ethernet
At the OCP 2023 event, Thad Omura, SVP of Business and Corporate Development at Astera Labs, discussed the company’s advancements in scaling AI platforms and cloud infrastructure, including enabling PCI Express infrastructure to scale with increasing GPUs and AI accelerators. Astera Labs has also partnered with Lenovo and AMD to offer unprecedented memory capacity using their CXL memory expanders and showcased their industry-leading ethernet retim used for active electrical cases, allowing high-speed connectivity in the rack and from switch to switch.
Broadcom's new 25.6T Router Super Chip
Henry Wu, Technical Director at Broadcom, unveils the Qumran3D, the industry’s first 5-nanometer 25.6 terabit router chip, offering up to 66% power savings and 80% router space reduction. The device, designed to combat cybersecurity threats, supports high-speed, high-density port interfaces up to 800GE leveraging best-in-class 100Gb/s PAM-4 SerDes. The design also enables massive on chip forwarding databases, eliminating the need for companion devices
CXL for AI-Powered Data Centers
Siamak Tavallaei, CXL Advisor to the Board at CXL Consortium, addressed the challenges artificial intelligence and machine learning pose to system architects at the OCP Global Summit. He proposed the use of the CXL specification, UCIe as a transport for running CXL for die to die, and interconnect techniques like photonics to construct large machine learning systems, enabling larger memory blocks and interfaces with emerging memory technologies.
800ZR/ZR+ OSFP for Regional Data Center Interconnects
Radha Nagarajan, SVP and CTO of Optical and Cloud at Marvell, highlighted the company’s new 800 Gbps ZR/ZR+ coherent pluggable module designed to enhance data center connectivity by converting a switch or router into a transport platform. The module, which leverages Marvell’s capabilities at 800 gig, including the DSP, high-speed TIAs, drivers, and silicon photonics, enables a single fiber capacity of 25.6 terabits between data centers, facilitating larger data aggregation.
Power Efficiency of Next Gen CPO Data Center Switches
Max Simmons, Chief Marketing Officer at Micas Networks, presented at the OCP Global Summit 2023 about the company’s new switches co-packaged with optics from Broadcom, which deliver up to 30% lower power consumption. Micas Networks showcased their C-package optics technology, which is of interest to large hyperscalers for power savings in data centers, and is eager to collaborate with these companies for its implementation in the future.
Future Tech Symposium - AI, Quantum, Sustainability
Lesya Dymyd, Chair of the Future Technology Symposium at the Open Compute Project, highlighted future technologies presented by startups, R&D organizations, and academic researchers. The 2023 edition featured five technological tracks, live demos and poster sessions. The next event will next take place in Lisbon, Portugal, on April 24 and 25th, 2024.
Accelerating the Chiplet Economy
Bapi Vinnakota, ODSA Project Lead at Open Compute Project, highlighted the advancements in the open chiplet economy, including the development of a new language, CDXML with JEDEC, to describe chiplets globally and aid in tool flows and design searches. The project has also seen progress in interfaces, with the open chiplet economy transitioning from theory to tangible products and prototypes, as demonstrated by an experience center showcasing chiplet-based products, IP, and workflow from 11 companies.
AI is Open Compute Project's Biggest Challenge
Zaid Kahn, Board Chair of Open Compute Project (OCP), recognizes the challenges posed by the rapid development of AI, necessitating a rethink in system design, data center construction, and infrastructure cooling. Khan emphasizes the need for collective effort and collaboration to address these issues, and explains the role OCP plays.
New Multi-Vendor Supply Chains
Steve Helvie, VP Emerging Markets at Open Compute Project (OCP), highlights some key announcements from OCP Summit 2023, including the introduction of OCP SAFE, a security appraisal framework for hardware and firmware, and the development of modular hardware systems for data center systems. Helvie also noted the growth of OCP Experience Centers, now numbering 20 worldwide, which allow members to evaluate and test hardware.
Pathways to Optical Innovation for AI Data Centers
Nathan Tracy, President of OIF, recently discussed the organization’s future plans, including the development of 200G electrical and 100G linear optics, CMIS activities, and the importance of co-packaging for AI data centers. Tracy also introduced a new project aimed at creating energy-efficient interconnects to deliver industry-standard interoperable solutions for next-generation AI data centers.