Making best use of data at the network's edge

Moshe Shadmon has always been interested in data, the type that is spread out and requires scrutiny.  

Moshe Shadmon

He read law at university but was also fascinated by maths and computers.

By the time Shadmon graduated with a law degree, he had set up a software company. He never practised law. 

"I think that part [not having an engineering degree] has always allowed me to look at things differently," he says.

More recently, Shadmon's interest in data has focussed on the network edge. Here, the data is typically across locations and too plentiful to fit within one machine. 

"If the data needs to be managed across many machines, it is a problem," says Shadmon. "Suddenly, solutions become complicated and expensive."

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Boosting copper’s reach in the data centre

Marvell has unveiled a chip that enables copper cables to send 1.6 terabits-per-second (Tbps) of data between equipment in the data centre. 

Copper cabling, also referred to as direct attach copper, is the standard interconnect used to connect compute nodes in a server, and between servers when building larger computing systems. 

Venu Balasubramonian

Data centre operators prefer to use passive copper cables. A copper cable costs less than an optical cable, a critical consideration when tens of thousands may be used in a large data centre.

Compute servers using the latest processors and AI accelerator chips have increasing input-output (I/O) requirements. This is causing interface speeds between servers, and between servers and switches, to keep doubling—from 400 gigabits to 800 gigabits and soon 1.6Tbps.

Moreoever, with each speed hike, the copper cable’s reach shrinks. A copper cable sending 25 gigabits of data has a reache of 7m, but it is only 2m at 100Gbps and is only 1m at 200Gbps.

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Is network traffic growth dwindling to a trickle?

“Network capacities are sufficient, and with data usage expected to plateau in the coming years, further capacity expansion is not needed. We have reached the end of history for communications.”  

Willian Webb, The End of Telecoms History

William Webb has pedigree when it comes to foreseeing telecoms trends.  

William Webb

Webb wrote The 5G Myth in 2016, warning that 5G would be a flop.

In the book, he argued that the wireless standard's features would create limited interest and fail to grow revenues for mobile operators. 

The next seven years saw the telcos promoting 5G and its capabilities. Now, they admit their considerable investments in 5G have delivered underwhelming returns.

His latest book, The End of Telecoms History, argues that telecoms has reached a maturity that satisfies the link speeds needed and that traffic growth is slowing. 

"There will be no end of new applications," says Webb. "But they won't result in material growth in data requirements or in data speeds."  

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Will AI spur revenue growth for the telcos?

• A global AI survey sponsored by Ciena highlights industry optimism 
• The telcos have unique networking assets that can serve users of AI.
• Much is still to play out and telcos have a history of missed opportunities.

The leading communications service providers have been on a decade-long journey to transform their networks and grow their revenues.

Jürgen Hatheier.

To the list of technologies the operators have been embracing can now be added artificial intelligence (AI). 

AI is a powerful tool for improving their business efficiency. The technology is also a revenue opportunity and service providers are studying how AI traffic will impact their networks. 

"This is the single biggest question that everyone in this industry is struggling with," says Jürgen Hatheier. "How can the service providers exploit the technology to grow revenues?"

However, some question whether AI will be an telecom opportunity.

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Nokia picks Infinera to boost its optical networking arm

Nokia has announced its intention to buy optical networking specialist Infinera for $2.3 billion. 

The motivation for the Infinera acquisition is scale, said Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark, during an analyst call detailing the announcement. 

Jimmy Yu, Dell'Oro Group

Optical networking is how communications service providers and hyperscalers cope with the exponential traffic growth. 

Continual innovation is required to reduce the cost and power consumed to transport such traffic. For a systems vendor, having scale helps meet these aims.

Optical networking wasn't always central to Nokia's strategy. In 2013, Nokia sold its optical networking arm to Marlin Equity Partners, which became Coriant.

Now, Nokia wants to be a leading optical networking vendor by acquiring Infinera, a company that bought Coriant in 2018.   

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Cloud and AI: Opportunities that must be grabbed

The founder of Cloud Light, Dennis Tong, talks about the company, how its sale to Lumentum came about, and the promise of cloud and AI markets for optics.

For Dennis Tong (pictured), Hong Kong is a unique place that has a perfect blend of the East and West.

Tong, the founder and CEO of optical module specialist Cloud Light, should know. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong and has R&D offices in Hong Kong and Taipei, Taiwan. Cloud Light also has manufacturing sites in Asia: in the Chinese city of Dongguan—two hours by car north of Hong Kong—and in the Philippines.

Now, Cloud Light is part of Lumentum. The U.S. photonics firm bought the optical module maker for $750 million in November 2023.

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Broadcom's Thor 2 looks to hammer top spot in AI NICs

Broadcom has announced the availability of network interface cards (NICs) for large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) computers. 

Jas Tremblay

The NIC cards are using Broadcom's Thor 2 chip which started sampling in 2023 and is now in volume production.

Jas Tremblay, vice president and general manager of the data center solutions group at Broadcom, says the Thor 2 is the industry's first 400 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) NIC device to be implemented in a 5nm CMOS process.  

"It [the design] gives customers choices and freedom when they're building their AI systems such that they can use different NICs with different [Ethernet] switches," says Tremblay.

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