NVIDIA and Cisco have collaborated to introduce a new pluggable optical module, USFP (Ultra-Dense Small Form-Factor Pluggable), specifically designed to scale AI factory networks. USFP is the first module to support 400Gb/s electrical signals per channel, with a single module capacity of up to 12.8Tb/s. This enables AI builders to connect more computing systems without increasing network layers and reduces power consumption per bit of data transmitted. Compared to existing 200Gb/s per channel optical modules, USFP offers 4x higher bandwidth density and 1.3x better energy efficiency. Currently, NVIDIA and Cisco are working with TE Connectivity and Amphenol to build a multi-source hardware ecosystem around USFP.
