Networking is the third pillar of AMD's Advancing AI 2026 rack-scale strategy, and today the company detailed the AMD Pensando silicon and fabric technology that connects the Helios rack. As Helios is AMD's first rack-scale design, the company encountered challenges in interconnecting many GPUs, memories, and data movement speeds within a single system, both for scaling up and scaling out for multi-rack connections inside the data center. Current AI infrastructure must closely follow model development as AI model sizes have grown exponentially, from the original 65-million-parameter Transformer in 2017 to trillion-parameter GPT-4-class systems and now 10-trillion-plus parameter agentic and reasoning models. To run a model with more than 10 trillion parameters, you need to connect dozens of GPUs with high-speed VRAM, as well as a high-speed interconnect to split model weights effectively so latency isn't an issue. The modern interconnect of choice is again the plain-old Ethernet, not proprietary interconnects, which have become the standard for AI networking.

AMD's solution spans three layers: a third-generation Pensando "Salina" DPU on the front end, a first-generation UALink-over-Ethernet (UALoE) scale-up fabric inside the rack, and a second-generation Pensando "Vulcano" AI NIC for scale-out. All of this is managed by AMD's Helios management software and Fabric Manager. AMD outlined challenges that bandwidth needs are doubling in less than two years driven by massive AI models growing at a rapid pace, and that the hardware iteration cycles need to account for intelligence in the data fabric layer, not only compute layer.

Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO), a global leader in semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, today announced Thor Ultra, the industry's first 800G AI Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC), capable of interconnecting hundreds of thousands of XPUs to drive trillion-parameter AI workloads. By adopting the open Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) specification, Thor Ultra gives customers the ability to scale AI workloads with unparalleled performance, and efficiency in an open ecosystem.

"Thor Ultra delivers on the vision of Ultra Ethernet Consortium for modernizing RDMA for large AI clusters," said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager of the Core Switching Group at Broadcom. "Designed from the ground up, Thor Ultra is the industry's first 800G Ethernet NIC and is fully feature compliant with UEC specification. We are grateful to our customers for their partnership and to our exceptional engineering team for the product innovation."

The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) today announces the release of UEC Specification 1.0, a comprehensive, Ethernet-based communication stack engineered to meet the demanding needs of modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) workloads. This release marks a critical step forward in redefining Ethernet for next-generation, data-intensive infrastructure.

UEC Specification 1.0 delivers a high-performance, scalable, and interoperable solution across all layers of the networking stack—including NICs, switches, optics, and cables—enabling seamless multivendor integration and accelerating innovation throughout the ecosystem.

Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) is delighted to announce the addition of 45 new members to its thriving community since November, 2023. This remarkable influx of members underscores UEC's position as a unifying force, bringing together industry leaders to build a complete Ethernet-based communication stack architecture for high-performance networking. As a testament to UEC's commitment and the vibrant growth of its community, members shared their excitement about the recent developments. The community testimonials, accessible on our Testimonial page, reflect the positive impact UEC is having on its members. These testimonials highlight the collaborative spirit and the shared vision for the future of high-performance networking.

In the four months since November 2023, when UEC began accepting new members, the consortium has experienced an impressive growth of 450%. In October 2023, UEC boasted a distinguished membership comprising 10 steering members, marking the initial steps towards fostering collaboration in the high-performance networking sector. Now, the community is flourishing with the addition of 45 new member companies, reflecting an extraordinary expansion that demonstrates the industry's recognition of UEC's commitment. With a total of 715 industry experts actively engaged in the eight working groups, UEC is positioned at the forefront of industry collaboration, driving advancements in Ethernet-based communication technologies.