NTT Corporation and Toshiba partners on epoch making project known as the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN). This joint venture seeks to remake the future of information and communications technology infrastructure. This monumental initiative has garnered international attention. In fact, it now has more than 160 members, including all the major chip and server manufacturers and internet companies such as Google and Microsoft. IOWN focuses its efforts on R&D in silicon photonics and optical packaging. Spanning the globe to connect people, places, and ideas, this commitment propels expanding high-speed data delivery while minimizing energy use.
At a recent Smart Cities demo, NTT demonstrated just how far NTT’s new, radical capabilities go. They remotely operated a high speed factory production line with a optical and wireless network from a data center housed 300 kilometers away. This revolutionary accomplishment is a first for our industry! It represents a major achievement of NTT and its participating partners in the IOWN movement.
Advancements in Optical Communication
The main goal of IOWN is to move from conventional electrical wiring to optical communication in data centers. This shift encompasses connections between circuit boards in servers, silicon packages on circuit boards, and ultimately, connections between silicon dies inside packages. C. Sean Lawrence, a leading figure in the initiative, emphasized the need for a paradigm shift in thinking to overcome existing challenges.
“We need to think differently to overcome this,” – C. Sean Lawrence
Lawrence went on to elaborate on the vision that’s driving IOWN. He added that making the move to optical systems as a key step in improving data center efficiency. “The core idea is to move from electrical wiring to optical, inside data centers, between circuit boards in servers, between silicon packages on circuit boards, and eventually between the silicon die inside a package,” he explained. This transformation is expected to pave the way for lower power consumption and higher bandwidth, ultimately supporting the increasing demands of modern computing.
Industry Collaboration and Future Roadmap
The deeply collaborative nature of IOWN beyond its goals is highlighted by the diversity of its membership, which includes central players from the ICT and entertainment sectors. Backed by contributions from optical chipmakers and internet companies, the initiative seeks to catalyze significant breakthroughs in optical communication technology. NTT has partnered with U.S. chipmaker Broadcom to commercialize the second-generation PEC, called Photonic Electric Converter II (PEC-II). They want this promising new technology to be on the streets by 2026.
NTT’s roadmap for IOWN would lead to a 2030-early 2040 implementation date. Following the second-generation PEC commercialization, inter-chip links are scheduled to come online in 2028. Within-chip interconnects are projected to be introduced in 2032. These developments are poised to make data transmission capabilities to and from the cloud even better on any platform.
There’s still hurdles to getting the whole system optical. Takasumi Tanabe, another prominent figure in the IOWN initiative, acknowledged these obstacles, stating, “At the device level, some aspects are more challenging.” His argument intertwined the belief that a totally “all-optical” system wouldn’t be physically possible with existing device physics.
“A completely ‘all-optical’ system, in which electronics are removed entirely, may not be feasible with the current state of device physics.” – Takasumi Tanabe
Even with these hurdles, Tanabe is hopeful for the place that photonic devices will have in future systems. “Even so, I expect photonic devices to play an increasingly important role in the most critical parts of future systems, where low-power consumption, high bandwidth and low latency are required,” he stated.
The Urgency for Innovation
As the pace of technological change keeps growing exponentially, the need for innovations such as IOWN is becoming more urgent. The recent advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought computing to the center of the technological dialogue. Rubenstein highlights this shift by stating that if AI continues its current trajectory, it will bring society much closer to realizing the vision set forth by initiatives like IOWN.
“With the advent of AI,” Rubenstein adds, “Computing has returned to center of everything. If the AI boom slows, then the urgency will disappear. But if AI continues as it has done, in five years it will be much closer to that vision.” – source
As NTT and Toshiba move forward with IOWN, the potential impacts on data center and communication infrastructures are significant. They introduce new optical communication technologies to increase efficiency. Further, they hope to reduce energy use overall.