NVIDIA Silicon Photonics
Type: Technology Tags: NVIDIA, silicon photonics, optical networking, co-packaged optics, Spectrum-X, ConnectX-9, AI factory Related: NVIDIA-Spectrum-X, NVIDIA-ConnectX-9, NVIDIA-Vera-Rubin, NVIDIA-DGX-SuperPOD, NVIDIA-Enterprise-AI-Factory, NVIDIA-Quantum-InfiniBand Sources: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/networking/silicon-photonics/, https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/technologies/rubin/ Last Updated: 2026-04-29
Summary
NVIDIA Silicon Photonics is NVIDIA’s optical networking direction for scaling AI factory fabrics with lower power and higher density. Current NVIDIA pages connect silicon photonics to next-generation Spectrum-X Ethernet, ConnectX-9, Vera Rubin, and rack-scale AI infrastructure.
Detail
Purpose
AI factories increasingly need high-bandwidth optical links between GPU racks, storage systems, and network switches. Silicon photonics integrates optical communication closer to networking silicon, reducing power and increasing density compared with traditional pluggable optics at large scale.
Current public positioning
- Optical networking technology for next-generation AI data centers.
- Connected to Spectrum-X Ethernet, high-speed AI fabrics, and Vera Rubin platform direction.
- Relevant to 1.6 Tb/s-class networking and large NVL/rack-scale systems.
- Complements NVIDIA-ConnectX-9, Spectrum switches, and InfiniBand/Ethernet AI networking.
NVIDIA context
Use this page for the optical interconnect technology layer. Keep NVIDIA-Spectrum-X as the Ethernet AI networking platform page and NVIDIA-Quantum-InfiniBand as the InfiniBand page.
Connections
- NVIDIA-Spectrum-X - Ethernet AI networking platform that current silicon photonics material complements.
- NVIDIA-ConnectX-9 - next-generation SuperNIC aligned with high-bandwidth optical networking.
- NVIDIA-Vera-Rubin - Vera Rubin public materials include silicon photonics in the platform direction.
- NVIDIA-DGX-SuperPOD - large AI factory clusters need power-efficient high-bandwidth networking.
- NVIDIA-Enterprise-AI-Factory - optical networking is part of future AI factory scale-out planning.
- NVIDIA-Quantum-InfiniBand - InfiniBand fabric counterpart for AI/HPC scale-out networking.
Source Excerpts
- NVIDIA’s silicon photonics page describes optical networking for scaling AI data centers and AI factory fabrics.