NVIDIA Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand Switch Systems
NVIDIA is revolutionizing networking for the era of agentic AI by introducing the NVIDIA Quantum-X Photonics switch, the world’s first InfiniBand switch featuring co-packaged optics. NVIDIA co-packaged optics (CPO) replace the pluggable transceiver with optical engines that are situated on the same package as the switch application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The fiber plugs directly into the switch, and the optical engine processes the incoming data. These engines are made up of tightly coupled silicon photonics chiplets that enable light to travel over silicon. As a result of this design, the single-mode cable can connect directly to the package, eliminating the need for transceiver ICs and additional digital signal processor (DSP) retimers, which add power and latency penalties.