- Corning unveiled a new suite of products to help operators build more fiber into the data center
- The move comes as the data center industry faces demand for “rapidly growing” AI clusters, said Dell’Oro’s Sameh Boujelbene
- Corning wants to replace all the copper wiring in data center racks with optical fiber
Corning wants to help operators meet demand for more fiber to satiate data center needs for AI-capable network capacity. The vendor launched GlassWorks AI to assist telcos in building out the dense optical infrastructure required to support data center graphical processing units (GPUs). Notably, the product set includes Corning’s new Contour Flow Cable, which can fit double the fiber into existing cable diameters.
More and more of Corning’s customers want dense micro-ducts for their data center interconnect (DCI) route because they enable faster deployments at a lower cost, said Brian Rhoney, data center market development director at Corning,
“Increasing network density is every bit as critical outside the data center as it is inside,” Rhoney told Fierce. “Whether installing fiber in existing ducts or new ducts, our customers want to maximize fiber capacity as it will provide room for future scalable growth at a modest incremental first-install cost."
Alongside high-density cables and optical hardware, Corning is offering MMC connectors, which allow operators to connect multiple fibers simultaneously in a compact space. This is important as server and switch rack space “must be optimized to accommodate the additional fiber interconnects required by AI servers,” Rhoney added.
Corning’s data center push comes as long-haul fiber operators, including Lumen, Windstream and Zayo are doubling down to meet hyperscaler needs, which include higher counts of dark fiber.
The move also addresses a key challenge in the data center industry — the “rapidly growing” size of AI clusters, said Dell’Oro Group VP Sameh Boujelbene.
AI clusters have already expanded from a few thousand GPUs per cluster to “hundreds of thousands,” she said, and the future could potentially see “a million GPUs per cluster.” And as GPU numbers go up, the number of data center interconnects “will scale exponentially.”
“Because AI clusters are power-hungry, they need to be largely distributed across multiple data centers and, in some cases, across different regions,” Boujelbene explained. “This means the challenge extends beyond intra-data center interconnects to inter-data center interconnects as well.”
Data centers are already power-constrained and make extensive use of copper. Corning wants to replace all that copper with optical fiber, and the vendor is looking to co-packaged optics to assist.
Nvidia showcased new silicon photonics and co-packaged optics at its recent GTC conference that could cut power consumption in data center racks.
Ciena is entrenched in the data centermarket, while vendors including Nokia and CommScope are looking to tap in. Nokia, which recently finalized its $2.3 billion Infinera acquisition, has unveiled a slate of new optical products tailored for AI and the cloud.