Softbank and NewPhotonics Announce Collaboration on Advanced Photonics Technology for LPO, CPO and All-Optics Switch Fabric Targeting AI-RAN

Collaboration Agreement Targets Next Generation Data Centers vRAN to Fronthaul with All-Optical Transmission and Switching  

FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftBank Corp. ('SoftBank') and NewPhotonics LTD ('NewPhotonics'), a leader in advanced integrated photonics, today announced a joint research and development collaboration to advance photonics technologies for LPO (Linear-drive Pluggable Optics), CPO (Co-packaged Optics), and All-Optics Switch Fabric. This photonics-electronics convergence technology with high-speed optical communication and Optical Switching Technology enables low latency and low power consumption in AI data center and mobile fronthaul infrastructure. The technologies support SoftBank in AI data center and mobile fronthaul infrastructure with NewPhotonics patented technologies coupled with its photonics integrated chip (PIC) for reliable all-optics communication and optical fabric switching.

Targeting improved performance of GPU/CPU/switch fabric with PIC and low latency optical connectivity, the technology will also address power consumption and capacity bottlenecks in AI cluster workloads based on high-speed optical communication and optical switching technology. The patented NewPhotonics optical SerDes (serializer/deserializer) will enable higher density and low latency data transfer in mobile fronthaul and data center. 

Co-packaged advanced optical technologies deliver improved speed and energy efficiency crucial in data center re-designs underway for high performance compute and vector processing applications. In addition, the LPO technology realized by incorporating the NewPhotonics PIC into the optical transceiver enables long-distance transmission greater than existing LPO technology. Applying NewPhotonics LPO technology to mobile fronthaul is expected to reduce processing delays, reduce power consumption, and extend distances of data transport equipment.  

Ryuji Wakikawa, Head of SoftBank Research Institute of Advanced Technology, said:  

"We believe this partnership with NewPhotonics is necessary for next generation infrastructure. By collaborating, we envision a transformation in AI data center and mobile fronthaul infrastructure with optical-electronics convergence technologies that enhances speed, distance limit, capacity, and, most importantly, leads to sustainability gains giving SoftBank a significant advantage and market leadership."  

Yaniv Ben Haim, CEO of NewPhotonics added, "Our new collaboration agreement with Softbank marks a significant milestone for our company and the industry to advance optical interconnect technology in CPO and pluggable that address the needs of modern compute and AI infrastructure. We remain committed to breaking the limits of optical communication with lowered latency and power at scalable distances. This partnership exemplifies our confidence in the impact of all-optical connectivity on the future of AI and 6G with our patented photonics innovations." 

About Softbank 

Guided by the SoftBank Group's corporate philosophy, "Information Revolution – Happiness for everyone," SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) operates telecommunications and IT businesses in Japan and globally. Building on its strong business foundation, SoftBank Corp. is expanding into non-telecom fields in line with its "Beyond Carrier" growth strategy while further growing its telecom business by harnessing the power of 5G/6G, IoT, Digital Twin and Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) solutions, including High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS)-based stratospheric telecommunications. While constructing AI data centers and developing homegrown LLMs specialized for the Japanese language with one trillion parameters, SoftBank is applying AI to enhance radio access network performance (AI-RAN) with the aim of becoming a provider of next-generation social infrastructure. To learn more, please visit https://www.softbank.jp/en/ 

About NewPhotonics 

NewPhotonics is a fabless semiconductor company based in Tel Aviv Israel is designing, developing, and manufacturing photonic integrated circuits (PIC) that break the limits of optical connectivity and processing for a new all-optics paradigm in networking and compute data transmission. Founded in 2020, NewPhotonics is privately held and funded. For more information visit www.newphotonics.com. 

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