A new interconnect layer for AI factories

NVIDIA and Cisco have announced USFP, a new optical module form factor aimed at speeding up networking in AI data centers. According to the companies, USFP quadruples the bandwidth density of existing OSFP modules while keeping the same physical size.

What the numbers say

  • Up to 400 Gb/s per lane.
  • Up to 12.8 Tb/s total capacity per module.
  • A pluggable switch design that uses optics.

Why it matters

As AI factories grow, so does the demand for connecting systems while managing network complexity, power and cost. USFP targets more connections per switch and higher bandwidth per connection to ease that bottleneck.

Context

The news shows that AI infrastructure investment is extending into networking hardware. With this module, NVIDIA and Cisco promise a denser and more efficient optical networking layer for data centers.