Nvidia plans to launch an accelerated networking platform for generative AI workloads.
The Nvidia Spectrum-X couples the Spectrum-4 Ethernet switch with the Nvidia BlueField-3 DPU to offer what the company claims is the first Ethernet offering that’s purpose-built for AI.
"Spectrum-X introduces a lossless Ethernet network, one that does not drop data packets and therefore is able to maintain very short tail latency," Nvidia's SVP of networking, Gilad Shainer, said in a press pre-brief.
“An AI cloud system utilizes two Ethernet networks. One is used for cloud control and user access... [known as] the North-South network. The other one is the compute fabric connecting GPUs and CPUs, [which is called the] East-West network. Traditional Ethernet used for East-West connectivity is simply too slow to handle modern generative AI workloads.”
Spectrum-4 is a 51Tbps Ethernet switch. Spectrum-X enables up to 256 200Gbps ports connected by a single switch, or 16,000 ports in a two-tier leaf-spine topology.
