(Bloomberg) — The age of ever-bigger AI knowledge facilities is leaving cloud corporations with a query: What do with older, smaller amenities?
Broadcom Inc. is providing a doable reply, at the very least for operations situated with some proximity. A brand new model of its Jericho networking chip introduced Monday can switch bigger volumes of information at increased speeds. Meaning clients can hyperlink up a number of smaller knowledge facilities to create one large system for creating or operating AI fashions, stated Ram Velaga, senior vp and basic supervisor of the corporate’s core switching group.
The Jericho4 product is able to connecting greater than 1 million processors throughout a number of knowledge facilities and might deal with about 4 instances extra data than the earlier model, Broadcom stated.
Broadcom has been benefiting from demand for gear that can be utilized to construct out AI methods. Its networking elements, akin to routers and switches, direct site visitors between graphics processing items, or GPUs, the dear chips used to create AI fashions.
Whereas a number of the Broadcom gear is used to maneuver knowledge inside components of the identical rack or knowledge middle constructing, there’s additionally a necessity for elements that work throughout buildings and even larger distances. Furthermore, the energy consumption of large GPU clusters is getting too massive to maintain all of them in the identical location, Velaga stated.
“After they attempt to do a cluster of 200,000 GPUs or even 100,000 GPUs, you quickly hit 300 megawatts, and 300 megawatts shouldn’t be obtainable inside one bodily constructing immediately,” Velaga stated. The Jericho household of networking chips will assist that work, he stated.
Corporations additionally try to maneuver knowledge middle capability nearer to clients, serving to pace up the solutions customers get from AI fashions. Meaning cloud and AI companies might want to make use of information facilities situated in congested metropolitan areas, the place it could be extra sensible to attach a number of smaller setups, Velaga stated.
Broadcom’s Tomahawk line can join racks inside an information middle, however these distances are often below a kilometer (0.6 miles), Velaga stated. The Jericho tools can deal with distances of greater than 100 kilometers.
The Jericho4 will begin delivery Monday to early clients akin to cloud suppliers and community gear makers, which can construct it into their merchandise, Velaga stated. It’s going to take about 9 months for it to be absolutely deployed, he stated.
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