The Problem
AI is accelerating data center growth and energy needs. Data center power needs are expected to grow to 2.5x greater than current capacity by 2030, up to 83% more than government predictions. The electrical infrastructure may not be able to meet these energy needs.
Photonics solutions have not been able to provide adequate low power solutions and new micro ring architectures have been plagued with heat and reliability issues due to the high heat required for tuning (up to 300 degrees C).
The high bandwidth requirements of AI and HPC cannot tolerate the excess power trends in optical modules. The electrical data interface makes up 50 – 67% of the power consumption.
Conventional methodology uses a heater to tune a MRR.
Heat shifts can change center wavelength. With no cooling mechanism they rely on ambient temp difference.
With high temp operation MRR heaters can cross-heat. Conflicting objectives of MRRs are slow and imprecise impacting high temp reliability.
The electrical infrastructure may not be able to meet these energy needs. Average time to build out new power generation capacity is 3 years
The industry needs other solutions. AIP will introduce breakthrough technology dramatically reducing power consumption in Optical IO.
