Optical transmission innovation key to carrier success in AI eraOptical transmission innovation key to carrier success in AI era

Key to carriers’ business success in the AI era, added Bob Chen, will be building robust infrastructure networks with high bandwidth, low latency and high reliability. Network attributes of this sort, combined with scale and efficiency, will be particularly needed for datacenter (DC) interconnectivity to support vaulting leaps in data traffic volumes driven by AI applications and AI computing.

At UBBF 2024 Huawei showcased its DC-centric All-Optical Premium Transmission solution that addresses carriers’ transmission requirements in the “intelligent era”. The solution allows Huawei's innovative optical switching technology to be extended to DCs and metro edges.

Victor Zhou

Transmission innovation never stops

Victor Zhou, President of Huawei’s Optical Transmission Domain, is laser-focused on continued innovation. “The latency of optical switching is one thousandth of electrical switching, so by expanding optical switching from core nodes to network edges we can build an end-to-end all-optical switching network to ensure minimum latency,” he told Light Reading on the sidelines of UBBF 2024.

With all-optical switching at metro edges, Huawei says it can help carriers build 1ms, 5ms and 10ms “latency circles” through mesh networking, and an all-optical one-hop connection for end-to-end all-optical switching from the backbone to the metro.

Zhou pointed to NTT Com in Japan, which is building an all-photonic network as part of its ‘IOWN’ (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) initiative, as a great example of how networks will likely evolve in the future. 

“In terms of bandwidth, the 400G industry ecosystem has matured,” adds Zhou. “Compared with 100G, cost per bit is reduced significantly.” Huawei has also launched 1.2T and 1.6T solutions for short-distance data center interconnection. “To maximize fiber spectrum, we are expanding from C-band to L-band, which doubles fiber capacity,” explains Zhou.

Many aspects of OTN innovation were on show at UBBF 2024. These included 400G/800G OTN; fine-grain OTN (fgOTN) to replace legacy SDH networks, end-to-end OXC (optical cross-connect), and wavelength-shared WDM aggregation.

Huawei is at the forefront of these developments. At UBBF in Istanbul, Huawei demonstrated a 3D-mesh backbone network with 99.9999% reliability based on its optical-electrical hybrid ASON (Automatically Switched Optical Network). Huawei’s ‘one-hop’ all-optical metro network with 1ms latency was also on show.

OTN innovation is not confined to UBBF exhibition space. Huawei reports that its 400G/800G solution has been deployed by more than 140 carriers worldwide and its OXC products are active in more than 100 networks.

Huawei also lays claim to industry’s first DC-based 100T OTN platform and reports that its Alps-WDM solution for wavelength-shared WDM aggregation has been deployed by more than 50 carriers around the world. A similar number of carriers have extended Huawei’s optical switching to metro edges and achieved 1ms latency.

Ten years on

UBBF 2024, under the tagline of “All Intelligence with UBB Advanced”, marked the tenth UBBF anniversary. Much technological advancement has been made since the inaugural UBBF 2014 edition in London when 40G/100G transport links were still in the planning stage and all-optical networks were a distant dream.

What can we expect when UBBF 2034 comes around? It’s always dangerous to make long-term predictions, especially for a market as dynamic as UBB. Growing AI adoption by carriers seems a firm direction of travel, however. The next decade will surely witness the fast popularization of AI in carriers’ networks.

Victor Zhou talks about the emergence of AI full-service providers. “The next 10 years will be an intelligent era, where AI models, terminals and applications are mature,” he told Light Reading. “AI applications will bring new network requirements for bandwidth and stable low-latency, but it will also mean huge opportunities for telecom operators.”