Intel unveils world's first optical interconnect tech using photonics, 100x distance increased

Intel has just reached a revolutionary milestone in integrated photonics technology for high-speed data transmission, which will be a game-changer for AI.

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At the Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) 2024, Intel's Integrated Photonics Solutions (IPS) Group demonstrated the industry's most advanced and first-ever fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet co-packaged with an Intel CPU and running live data.

Intel's OCI chiplet is a huge jump forward in high-bandwidth interconnect by enabling co-packaged optical input/output (I/O) in emerging AI infrastructure for data centers and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. The new OCI chiplet from Intel has much higher bandwidth speeds through its co-packaged I/O, with support for up to 64 channels at 32Gbps data transmission speeds. Intel's new OCI chiplet features include:

• Better Bandwidth
• Higher Energy Efficiency
• Lower Latency
• Longer Reach

The new co-packaged optical I/O system can also now scale up distances, supporting up to 100 meters of fiber optics. When OCI is compared to the traditional "Electrical I/O" the company has boosted distances by 100x, which is massive for HPC and AI systems. Intel says moving from electrical to optical is like switching from "horse carriages" to "motor vehicles". That's some big claims from Intel.

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Thomas Liljeberg, senior director, Product Management and Strategy, Integrated Photonics Solutions Group, said: "The ever-increasing movement of data from server to server is straining the capabilities of today's data center infrastructure, and current solutions are rapidly approaching the practical limits of electrical I/O performance. However, Intel's groundbreaking achievement empowers customers to seamlessly integrate co-packaged silicon photonics interconnect solutions into next-generation compute systems. Our OCI chiplet boosts bandwidth, reduces power consumption and increases reach, enabling ML workload acceleration that promises to revolutionize high-performance AI infrastructure".