NVIDIA unveiled its next-generation silicon photonics switches—Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet and Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand—designed to scale AI factories to connect millions of GPUs while cutting energy consumption and improving performance. The new co-packaged optics (CPO) switches mark a major leap forward for AI data center networks, offering 3.5x power efficiency, 10x higher resiliency, and faster deployment compared to traditional network architectures. These photonic switches integrate optical components directly into switch silicon, reducing the need for external lasers and delivering significant space and power savings.
The Spectrum-X Photonics platform provides Ethernet-based switching with configurations of up to 400 Tbps of total bandwidth across 2,048 ports, while the Quantum-X Photonics platform brings liquid-cooled InfiniBand switching with 144 ports of 800 Gbps to support high-performance AI compute fabrics. The switches leverage microring resonator modulator (MRM) technology and are manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 3D COUPE process. NVIDIA’s solution is optimized for next-generation AI factories — ultra-large-scale data centers supporting generative AI, large language models, and other compute-intensive workloads — as organizations push to build multi-tenant AI supercomputers with enhanced energy efficiency.
Backed by ecosystem partners including TSMC, Coherent, Corning, Foxconn, Lumentum, and SENKO, the new switches integrate fiber directly into the switch package, eliminating traditional transceivers to reduce complexity and footprint. The Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switch operates at 1.6 Tbps per port and scales to 512 ports, while the Quantum-X Photonics InfiniBand switch offers liquid-cooled photonics with similar speeds. According to Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s CEO, these innovations could cut up to 60 megawatts of power per AI data center—equivalent to eliminating 100 Rubin Ultra racks—providing a significant operational and sustainability advantage.
The photonic switches will integrate with NVIDIA’s broader AI networking stack, including ConnectX-8 SuperNICs, which link Blackwell Ultra GPUs at 800 Gbps, and BlueField-3 DPUs for secure, accelerated multi-tenant environments. Building on Spectrum-X’s success with AI supercomputers such as Colossus, NVIDIA plans to use this technology to scale future AI factories to hundreds of thousands of GPUs.
• NVIDIA debuts Spectrum-X and Quantum-X Photonics CPO switches, using microring resonator modulators and TSMC’s 3D COUPE process.
• Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switch delivers 1.6 Tbps per port and scales to 512 ports for 400 Tbps total bandwidth.
• Eliminates traditional transceivers by connecting fiber directly to the switch package.
• Energy savings of up to 60 megawatts in hyperscale data centers, improving TCO and sustainability.
• Integrates with ConnectX-8 SuperNICs at 800 Gbps and BlueField-3 DPUs for accelerated and secure AI networking.
• Quantum-X InfiniBand version ships later in 2025; Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet version ships in 2026.
“AI factories are a new class of data centers with extreme scale, and networking infrastructure must be reinvented to keep pace,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
- TSMC’s Compact Universal Photonic Engine (COUPE) is an advanced 3D-IC assembly that integrates electronic integrated circuits (EICs) with photonic integrated circuits (PICs) using TSMC’s SoIC-X chip stacking technology. This design minimizes coupling losses between electrical and photonic components, enhancing energy efficiency and performance. The COUPE architecture facilitates the direct connection of fiber optics to electronic systems, eliminating the need for traditional transceivers and thereby reducing power consumption and physical footprint. This integration is pivotal for high-performance computing applications, as it supports the substantial data transmission demands driven by the proliferation of artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.
