Broadcom announced yesterday that its chip division has officially launched a new generation of Jericho4 Ethernet Fabric router, which is designed for a large-scale decentralized AI infrastructure, and can connect to data centers that are more than 60 miles (about 96.5 kilometers) apart, further improving AI computing efficiency and cross-air room interconnection capabilities.
As the AI model continues to be expanded, computing resource requirements have exceeded the power and physical capacity limitations of a single data center, and the distributed deployment of GPUs and XPUs has become a trend. Jericho4 can connect multiple data centers distributed at different locations into a high-efficiency network, allowing resources to quickly adjust between different machines and rooms to relieve single-point power and heat dissipate pressure.
Jericho4 uses NTL 3 nm process and is equipped with Broadcom's advanced 200G PAM4 SerDes technology. Each system can accommodate about 4,500 chips and supports 3.2 Tbps HyperPort. It can integrate four 800GE connections into a single logical port. The built-in high-frequency wide memory (HBM) and deep buffering of the chip can store traffic when the Internet is congested, ensuring zero-package RoCE transmission over 100 kilometers.
Jericho4's support distance is about 100 kilometers, suitable for interconnected data centers in the region, but is not designed for cross-country or long-distance deployment. At present, the platform has only begun to deliver to customers for testing. Whether the actual performance can meet the needs of cloud service providers remains to be confirmed.
Although Jericho4 still has certain limitations in distance and application scope, its high frequency width, secure encryption and low latency characteristics are strategically important for the decentralized deployment of AI data centers. As the demand for AI energy consumption and infrastructure continues to increase, Jericho4 provides a feasible interconnected solution for cloud and AI operators, laying the key foundation for large AI computing platforms.
Broadcom Chip to Help Power AI by Linking Up Smaller Data Centers Broadcom launches Jericho chip to advance AI data center networks