Co-packaged optics enables AI data center scale-up
AIchip Technologies and Ayar Labs unveiled a co-packaged optics (CPO) solution for multi-rack AI clusters, providing extended reach, low latency, and high radix. The joint development tackles AI infrastructure data-movement bottlenecks by replacing copper interconnects with CPO in large-scale accelerator deployments.
The offering integrates Ayar’s TeraPHY optical engines with AIchip’s advanced packaging on a common substrate, bringing optical I/O directly to the AI accelerator interface. This enables over 100 Tbps of scale-up bandwidth per accelerator and supports more than 256 optical scale-up ports per device. TeraPHY is also protocol agnostic, allowing flexible integration with customer-designed chiplets and fabrics.
The co-packaged solution scales multi-rack networks without the power and latency penalties of pluggable optics by shortening electrical traces and placing optical I/O close to the compute core. With UCIe support and flexible protocol endpoints at the package boundary, it integrates alongside compute tiles, memory, and accelerators while maintaining performance, signal integrity, and thermal requirements.
Both companies are working with select customers to integrate co-packaged optics into next-generation AI accelerators and scale-up switches. They will provide collateral, reference architectures, and build options to qualified design teams.
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