NTT outlined a technology roadmap for its Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) vision, which was first announced in May 2019.
IOWN has three technical elements: All Photonics Network, Digital Twin Computing, and Cognitive Foundation.
The roadmap calls for four technical directions:
(1) Full-Stack Communication Acceleration (Layer 4/Layer 3 Acceleration: CY2021, Technology for massive optical/wireless capacity: CY2023)
In order to take full advantage of the large capacity of IOWN All-Photonics Network, NTT will develop a new accelerated Layer 4/Layer 3 communication method that is less subject to the distance-related throughput degradation than TCP/IP. As the new communication method will lead to the explosive growth of data traffic, we will also develop a new network architecture and technology for massive optical and wireless capacity.
(2) Data-Centric Communication and Computing (CY2021)
NTT will develop Cognitive Foundation Data Hub (CF Data Hub), which enables nodes (sensor nodes or AI analysis nodes) to instantly exchange or share large data objects. By leveraging CF Data Hub as a central exchange point that faces multiple types of networks and computing infrastructures, IT infrastructures will shift from the conventional IP-centric paradigm to a new data-centric paradigm.
(3) Computing Scaling Across Device, Edge, and Center Cloud (CY2021)
NTT will develop a high-speed distributed computing technology that leverages ultra-broadband and low-latency communication on IOWN All-Photonics Network to realize a new cloud computing infrastructure that seamlessly spans multiple data centers.
(4) Sustainable Growth with Energy Efficiency (CY2023)
NTT will develop an architecture and technologies for photonic disaggregated computing, which significantly improves energy efficiency by replacing electronic data bus for inter-module data transfer with photonic data plane. After that, shift from electronic to photonic will also be applied to inter-package and inter-device interconnections on a step by step basis, which will eventually lead to a quantum leap improvement in energy efficiency.
