Empowering The Future of AI Connectivity With Alpha Networks' 1.6T Innovation

Author: Steve Olan, Marketing, Alpha Networks Collection: 2025 OCP Global Summit - Expo Hall Sessions

Summary

Alpha Networks presents its 1.6 Tbps Ethernet switch designed for AI backend networks, built on the Broadcom Tomahawk 6 ASIC with 64 ports of 1.6T OSFP interfaces and liquid cooling. The presentation frames the product around four industry challenges: bandwidth bottlenecks from GPU east-west traffic in AI training clusters, thermal management as power densities exceed air cooling capacity, ESG/sustainability pressures on energy-hungry data centers, and the need for modular/open networking to avoid vendor lock-in.

Alpha Networks is a Taiwan-headquartered design-manufacturing-services (DMS) company with over 20 years of experience in networking products. The company has R&D centers and factories globally, with product lines spanning switching, wireless broadband, digital multimedia, and enterprise mobile solutions. Their data center switch portfolio spans from gigabit through 10G, 25G, 40G, 100G, 400G, 800G to the current 1.6T generation.

The 1.6T switch features OCP-compatible design with modular CPU board, modular BMC compatible with OCP RunBMC, and OV3 rack standard compliance including bus bar power mating and liquid cooling blind-mate connectors. The roadmap includes liquid cooling (current R&D), followed by LPO and CPO (co-packaged optics). At booth A58, the company demonstrated the switch passing traffic through the Tomahawk 6 with thermocouples monitoring liquid cooling temperatures.