Nvidia-backed photonics startup Ayar Labs eyes hyperscale customers with GUC design collab

Nvidia-backed photonics startup Ayar Labs announced a new collaboration with Global Unichip Corp (GUC) on Sunday to integrate its optical I/O chiplets into the Taiwanese semiconductor design services provider's XPU reference designs. The idea is that rather than using copper interconnects, which have limited reach and often …

[Anonymous Coward]

Much better than Rolaids

Seems to me like 600 kW is like 100 electric stoves, plus ovens (total 6 kW), running at full blast, in the space of 1 rack ... enough to roast 100 Thanksgiving turkeys with all the trimmings, simultaneously, if they could all fit inside a single rack or cabinet ... enough for your party, and that of 99 of your (uninvited) neighbors' parties ... so why cram all of these 100 different parties in a single rack!?!?

The intensity of liquid cooling required to withstand the heat in this scenario would likely be overwhelming. Immersion might be the only solution there. But just think of the load on the plumbing and how that tends to fail at the least appropriate of times ... think of the optics!

Best to spread the load imho, air-cool it rather naturally, with stylish tophats, and keep things hooked up with plenty of fiber, Ayar-style. Your sanity, and intestinal transit, will thank you for it! ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this another Nvidia-sponsored company that gets given money by Nvidia to buy Nvidia chips from Nvidia using Nvidia's money so Nvidia can record yet another quarter of record-breaking growth?

Definitely not a Ponzi scheme.

[short]

I don't think so - this looks like Nvidia funding a company to make optical replacements for their existing NVlink chiplets

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/19/nvidia_nvlink_fusion/

and getting the advantage of greater reach and lower power.

I'm all for cynicism, but I think yours is misplaced here.