How CPO enables disaggregated computing

A significant shift in cloud computing architecture is emerging as start-up Drut Technologies introduces its scalable computing platform. The platform is attracting attention from major banks, telecom providers, and hyperscalers. 

At the heart of this innovation is a disaggregated computing system that can scale to 16,384 accelerator chips, enabled by pioneering use of co-packaged optics (CPO) technology.

"We have all the design work done on the product, and we are taking orders," says Bill Koss, CEO of Drut (pictured).

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The long game: Acacia's coherent vision

In 2007, Christian Rasmussen made a career-defining gamble. After attending a conference featuring presentations on coherent optical transmission, he returned home, consulted his family, and quit his job at Mintera, then an optical networking equipment maker.

Christian Rasmussen

The technology he'd seen discussed promised to solve the transmission impairments associated with direct-detection-based optical transmission – chromatic dispersion and polarisation mode dispersion - that had stymied optical transport to go beyond 40 gigabits-per-second (Gbps).

"We came back and were completely excited that there was a technology that addressed all the problems that we had experienced firsthand," says Rasmussen, now Chief Technology Officer at Acacia.

His bet paid off. Acacia which he helped co-found in 2009, had a successful IPO in 2016 and would later be acquired by Cisco Systems for $4.5 billion in 2021.

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Steve Alexander's 30-Year Journey at Ciena

After three decades of shaping optical networking technology, Steve Alexander is stepping down as Ciena's Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

His journey, from working on early optical networking systems to helping to implement AI as part of Ciena’s products, mirrors the evolution of telecommunications itself.

The farewell

"As soon as you say, 'Hey guys, you know, there's an end date', certain things start moving," says Alexander reflecting on his current transition period. "Some people want to say goodbye, others want more of your time."

After 30 years of work, the bulk of it as CTO, Alexander is ready to reclaim his time, starting with the symbolic act of shutting down Microsoft Outlook.

"I don't want to get up at six o'clock and look at my email and calendar to figure out my day,” he says.

His retirement plans blend the practical and the fun. The agenda includes long-delayed home projects and traveling with his wife. "My kids gave us dancing lessons for a Christmas present, that sort of thing," he says with a smile.

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OIF adds a short-reach design to its 1600ZR/ ZR+ portfolio

The OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum) has broadened its 1600-gigabit coherent optics specification work to include a third project, complementing the 1600ZR and 1600ZR+ initiatives.

Karl Gass

The latest project will add a short-reach 'coherent-lite' digital design to deliver a reach of 2km to 20km and possibly 40km with a low latency below 300ns.

The low latency will suit workloads and computing resources distributed across data centres.

"The coherent-lite is more than just the LR (long reach) work that we have done [at 400 gigabits and 800 gigabits]," says Karl Gass, optical vice chair of the OIF's physical link layer (PLL) working group, adding that the 1600-gigabit coherent-lite will be a distinct digital design.

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Books of 2024: Final Part

Gazettabyte has been asking industry figures to pick their reads of 2024. In the final part, Professor Polina Bayvel, Hojjat Salemi, Professor Laura Lechuga, and the editor of Gazettabyte share their selections.

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Professor Polina Bayvel, Royal Society Research Professor & Head of the Optical Networks Group, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, UCL

I recently attended a Royal Society Discussion Meeting where Leslie Valiant gave a brilliant talk on educability as a better definition than intelligence. A Harvard professor, he has developed many algorithms that underpin today's networks, including Valiant's load balancing. He is a profound thinker, and I wanted immediately to read his book, The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness.'

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Books of 2024: Part 3

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures to pick their reads of the year. In the penultimate entry, Prof. Yosef Ben Ezra, Dave Welch, William Webb, and Abdul Rahim share their favourite reads.

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Professor Yosef Ben Ezra, PhD, CTO, NewPhotonics

My reading in 2024 continued to augment my technical knowledge with insights on how to bring innovation to the market.

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AI’s next wave

The spectacular rise in the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) is directly attributable to the scaling of the computing hardware used to train AI models.

Nigel Toon

“People discovered early on that if you increase the size of those models and the amount of data to train those models, you get a big step-up in accuracy and performance,” says Nigel Toon, CEO and chairman of AI processor firm Graphcore. “The results have been stunning.”

Toon cites research that shows that for large language models the size of the model and the data must be scaled equally.

However, AI developers have started to see a slowdown in the gains achieved solely by such scaling. This is leading to new thinking in how engineers build an AI model and how it generates its output when prompted. The result is a new wave of AI, says Toon.

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