Credo unveils 1.6T active light cable for AI data centers

Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd unveiled its innovative 1.6T ZeroFlap active light cable, a groundbreaking optical interconnect solution tailored for AI scale-out and front-end networks. The product, showcased at the Open Compute Project Global Summit in San Jose, boasts a pluggable design utilizing micro-emitters and photodetectors within fiber bundles.

With a power consumption of 12W per cable-end, the cable can reach distances of up to 50 meters and offers a remarkable target mean time between failures of 100 million hours.

The technology cleverly splits 200G lanes into multiple low-rate optical channels using NRZ modulation, resulting in a solution that draws approximately 30% less power than comparable active electrical cables. Notably, the cable also weighs significantly less at one-tenth the weight of conventional options, making it an ideal choice for row-scale connectivity in AI data centers.

Credo's Associate Vice President of Product, L.K. Bhupathi, highlighted the cable's ability to meet the stringent reliability demands of scale-up and scale-out links in AI data centers, which surpass the capabilities of traditional optics. Credo President and CEO Bill Brennan presented the architecture at the summit, while the product is set to be commercially available in 2027.

Analyst Scott Wilkinson from Cignal AI praised the 1.6T ZeroFlap active light cable, noting its strategic position between copper cables and traditional pluggable optics as AI requirements continue to push for speed and distance advancements.