OpenAI, Microsoft And Friends Build A Better, More Scalable Ethernet

Sometimes,
to solve a particular system architecture problem, you have to invent a new
technology. And sometimes, you just need to squint at the problem a little and look
at what you already have and use the parts in a different way.

The
latter approach is what has happened as researchers at OpenAI, Microsoft, Broadcom,
AMD, and Nvidia took a hard look at how ever-embiggening bandwidth on network
ports is not necessarily a valuable thing compared to have scale out networks
that have higher radix switches – meaning a lot more network links between
devices – and also flatter networks with fewer switches. Lowering the switch
count means the scale out network lashing together AI system nodes has lower
latency (fewer hops across the network between any two endpoints), lower cost
(which lowers the total cost of acquisition), and lower power consumption (which
further lowers the total cost of ownership).

With
most great engineering ideas, when you look at it, the new…