Paradigm Change: Reinventing HPC Architectures with In-Package Optical I/O

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In this white paper, our friends over at Ayar Labs discuss an important paradigm change: reinventing HPC architectures with in-package optical I/O. The introduction of in-package optical I/O technology helps HPC centers accelerate the slope of compute progress needed to tackle ever-growing scientific problem sizes and HPC/AI convergence. Ayar Labs expects to not only see its technology extend the traditional type of architecture to put the HPC industry back on track, but also result in an inflection point that fundamentally changes the  slope of the compute performance efficiency curve. The key will be enabling converged HPC/AI centers to  build systems with disaggregated CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and custom ASICs interconnected on equal footing.

Just as Moore’s Law has slowed down, the infusion of AI into HPC has steepened the slope of the compute performance efficiency curve at the system level. The DOE’s AI for Science report states that, “if the largest model training costs continue their current growth rate of 10x/year, economic and environmental consequences will ultimately be the practical limits.” This can only be sustained with new architectures and distributed compute. Christopher Berner, Head of Compute at OpenAI has underscored the need for breakthrough technical innovations, stating “OpenAI must be on the cutting edge of AI capabilities and low latency, high bandwidth optical interconnect is a central piece of our compute strategy to achieve our  mission of delivering artificial intelligence technology that benefits all of humanity.”