Taking the routers out of fiber networks will unlock de-centralized data center architectures. Orange and NTT show how
Fiber optics has carried most long-distance network traffic for decades. But current networks face numerous speed bumps arising from routers that turn photons into electrons and back again. That’s an impediment for AI workloads that demand many more back-and-forth exchanges that depend on previous ones. Thus, a lot of the hyperscalers are planning to build super-data centers of sorts and raising all sorts of environmental, energy, and sovereignty concerns in the process.
But what if you could smooth over the speed bumps and make a bunch of tiny data centers look like one? New sites could be situated right next to renewables or privacy-sensitive enterprise data. That’s the ambition of the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) Global Forum, which has been developing standards and testbeds for All-Photonic Networks (APNs). It was formed in 2020 by NTT, Sony and Intel and now counts more than 180 members. At its recent...
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