Realistic check of AI interconnect scaling solutions for post 1.6T era

Time: Monday, 2 November 2026 | 1:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Location: Conference Room 205

Session Description:

With AI DC build out for 2026, rapid deployment of 800G is happening with close to 100M ports annually, while 1.6T is emerging soon as clear roadmap to reach prime time in next 2-3 years. The next era of networking is here for post 1.6Tb/s. In order to sustain the AI and cloud‑driven bandwidth surge, the industry enters into another crossroad again with many MSA solutions available, similar to the last situation with transition to 100Gb/s for 10 year ago. From industry perspective, while CPO is commonly considered as a long‑term enabler, many other solutions like NPO, CPX, XPO, 300/400G per lane, high‑order modulation & Coherent lite are proposed. In this session, we will provide an overview of various development status/readiness, and discuss these high capacity/high density optical solutions per use cases for how to meet AI scaling requirements in supporting AI scale up, scale out and scale across. 

More specially, the next revolution in AI computing clusters has been driven by scale up (for vertical scaling) as botleneck to enhance single-node performance such like “Super nodes”.  As we race toward 1.6T and beyond, it pushes network infrastructure to its fundamental limits of physical electrical interconnects, so a new paradigm is emerging for post 1.6T sotions:: a fundamental shift in how industry design network hardwares beyond pluggable optics transceivers. 

The workshop will focus on hyperscale end user case studies, design/package challenges, implementation & commercialization. Looking beyond today’s SuperPods, the path toward increasingly large and tightly connected “Hyper Pods,” become prevailing  with optics enabling  next level of system scale and integration. The workshop will bring together hyperscalers, CSP end users, switch integrators, and technology innovative vendors to exchange technology and market intelligence and help align future products, roadmaps, and supply chains around the next generation of AI computing.

Keywords: Scale up, 1.6T, optical transceivers, Switches, Data Center Interconnect

Organisers：

Sun Min, Tencent 

Scott Wilkinson, Cignal AI

Frank Chang, Source Photonics