{"id":483916,"date":"2025-10-08T21:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483916\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T21:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:13:12","slug":"photonics-could-be-a-gamechanger-for-ai-workloads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483916\/","title":{"rendered":"Photonics could be a gamechanger for AI workloads"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence is spurring a revolution in data centers, and photonics are a part of it.<\/p>\n

Silicon photonics is a high-bandwidth alternative to traditional electronic chips. Lightmatter Inc., one of the leaders in this burgeoning space, aims to transform data centers and support the growing AI economy.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/p>\n

Lightmatter\u2019s Steve Klinger talks to theCUBE about photonic computing is powering AI workloads.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re focused on is unlocking the interconnect bottlenecks in data centers,\u201d said Steve Klinger<\/a> (pictured), vice president of product at Lightmatter. \u201cLightmatter is really utilizing silicon photonics to provide much higher bandwidth and also enable much higher connectivity \u2026 using light to transmit the data to connect much larger numbers of compute units together \u2026 to continue the AI performance scaling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klinger spoke with theCUBE\u2019s John Furrier<\/a> at theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories \u2013 Data Centers of the Future<\/a> event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media\u2019s livestreaming studio. They discussed how photonic computing powers AI workloads.<\/p>\n

Photonics computing lights up the AI space<\/p>\n

AI applications require high-performance computing loads, and silicon photonics have the potential to provide much faster connectivity. While electronic chips aren\u2019t entirely going away, Lightmatter\u2019s Passage optics product<\/a> could significantly reduce the latency between racks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at how most AI data center racks are built today,\u201d Klinger said. \u201cYou have copper based connectivity within the racks. Once you go beyond the number of compute units that fit inside the rack, then you\u2019re going to pluggable optics. The trouble is the amount of bandwidth you have there is much lower. So, you\u2019ve created a choke point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lightmatter\u2019s solution is to bring the optics directly to all the chips, transcending the space constraints of a normal rack. This could be a game changer for the GPUs and XPUs that support AI workloads. Lightmatter has also developed technology for protecting the photonic chips in different environments, Klinger explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the technology that we\u2019ve developed inside of Lightmatter is aimed at not only \u2026 implementing the core functionality, but making sure that it\u2019s fully stable, across temperature variations, across other physical disturbances that might occur in the data center,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE\u2019s and theCUBE\u2019s coverage of theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories \u2013 Data Centers of the Future<\/a> event:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Photo: SiliconANGLE<\/p>\n

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