Corning and Broadcom Collaborate on AI Data Center Optics

Corning Incorporated has partnered with Broadcom Inc. to enhance AI data center processing capabilities. Announced in a press release, Corning will supply optical components for Broadcom's Bailly co-packaged optics (CPO) technology, which is designed to significantly increase processing capacity within data centers.

The collaboration focuses on Broadcom's Bailly CPO system, the industry's first CPO-based 51.2 terabit per second (TBps) ethernet switch. This system aims to improve optical interconnection density and power savings, making it suitable for large-scale AI clusters. The CPO infrastructure enhances networking and processing bandwidth, density, and power efficiency by integrating optics and electronics more closely within the processing system.

Broadcom's Bailly CPO system includes eight silicon photonics-based, 6.4 TBps optical engines co-packaged with the StrataXGS® Tomahawk®5 Ethernet switch chip. Corning is a qualified supplier of the optical infrastructure needed to connect fibers to these optical engines, providing components such as fiber harnesses, connectors, and fiber array units (FAUs) with high precision and reliability.

This collaboration marks a significant step in meeting the growing demands of AI workloads, offering unprecedented speeds and bandwidth concentrations with reduced power consumption and costs.