WNC Unveils Advanced All-Optical Switch and 1.6TbE Switching at OCP Summit

The Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit opened in June in San Jose, California. Since its inception, the OCP has centered on "open hardware," encouraging enterprises, academic institutions, and government agencies to collaboratively design and manufacture more efficient and cost-effective data center infrastructure. The summit attracted over 1,000 industry representatives, including technical teams from several Taiwanese networking and semiconductor companies, who aimed to leverage the platform to advance local innovation and international cooperation. Qingdao Qini (Qini Technology) emerged as a notable highlight, announcing that it would showcase forward-looking solutions at the conference, including all-optical switches, 800G optical transceivers, and 1.6TbE switches, demonstrating Taiwan's technical prowess in optical communications and AI infrastructure.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, Qingdao Qini specializes in high-end optoelectronic network equipment and cloud computing solutions. The company has launched various optical transceivers, fiber communication modules, and data center switches, establishing itself as a key supplier in the optical communications sector through partnerships with major global cloud service providers. In recent years, as artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads have expanded rapidly, traditional circuit switching technologies have struggled to meet the demands for high bandwidth and low latency. Consequently, Qingdao Qini has invested resources in developing Optical Circuit Switches (OCS) to provide more efficient optical path switching and traffic management for AI data centers.

All-optical switches utilize optical wavelength division technology to perform routing and switching directly at the fiber level, thereby avoiding the latency and power consumption associated with optical-electrical-optical conversion. Qingdao Qini’s OCS products support hundreds of optical paths and feature automatic optical path adjustment and failover capabilities, making them suitable for handling the massive data transmission required for large-scale machine learning model training and inference. Compared to traditional circuit switches, OCS technology can reduce latency by several tens of percent. Furthermore, because optical paths are completed directly within the fiber, bandwidth can be expanded without additional power consumption, a critical advantage for AI applications requiring real-time feedback.

The 800G optical transceiver represents another breakthrough by Qingdao Qini in the high-bandwidth optical communications field. Compared to the currently mainstream 400G transceivers, 800G products offer twice the transmission rate on a single fiber and support longer transmission distances (up to several kilometers), significantly reducing fiber cabling costs. Qingdao Qini’s 800G transceivers adopt a new generation of optical module design, featuring higher optical power efficiency and lower distortion rates, ensuring stable operation even in extreme environments. This technology will provide faster data flow channels for AI data centers, shortening model training times and further enhancing corporate competitiveness.

The 1.6TbE switch is a high-performance solution developed by Qingdao Qini to address core data center switching needs. Its design adheres to OCP open hardware standards, ensuring high compatibility with equipment from major vendors. The 1.6TbE switch features a high-density port design (with each port capable of reaching 800G) and supports multiple protocols, such as RDMA and Infiniband, to meet the requirements of diverse AI workloads. Through the OCP’s open collaboration model, Qingdao Qini can rapidly iterate on product features and promote standardized optical communication infrastructure globally, laying a solid foundation for the future development of AI and cloud computing.

For Taiwan, Qingdao Qini’s appearance at the OCP Summit not only highlights the technical strength of local enterprises in optoelectronics and AI infrastructure but also injects new momentum into Taiwan’s competitiveness in the global data center market. As global demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency networks continues to rise, Taiwanese companies that continue to drive innovation in open hardware and optical communication technologies will secure a more prominent position in the international market. Qingdao Qini’s all-optical switches, 800G optical transceivers, and 1.6TbE switches are expected to become core components of AI data centers in the coming years, further deepening Taiwan’s participation in the AI and cloud industry chain. (Source: Central News Agency)