The chipmaking giant has developed a small chiplet that uses light instead of electricity to transmit data, potentially improving the bandwidth of data centers tasked with intense AI processing.AI’s hunger for computational power and energy appears insatiable. Even the most powerful data centers are using more processors and energy to meet the growing demand.
Information constantly travels between servers as it’s being processed at a data center, typically connected by electric signals traveling on a copper cable. While this allows for the high-bandwidth, low-energy transmission essential for efficient processing, the cables are limited in length to just over 3 feet – which places limitations on how you can connect things together.
Intel is not the only company looking into photonic technology for semiconductors. Companies like Global Foundries and Ayar Labs also have boasted the use of photonic integration to aid their AI architecture and products. However, questions abound about what scale these products need to be used at to make economic sense, as optical technologies are more expensive than conventional ones.