Software-enable energy-efficient hardware infrastructure for next-generation data centres

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The proposed 3-year project strategically addresses the challenges related to the urgent need for scaling data centres to support cloud computing and the emergence of Internet-of-Things (IoT) which are giving rise to an exponential growth in data to be stored and transmitted. The hardware infrastructure in data centres is becoming costly and power hungry, requiring industry to look for practical scaling solutions. Indeed, data centres have point-to-point interconnections between tens of thousands of servers in racks spread across an area that is often more than 10,000 meter square. Optical fiber interconnection (OFI) is currently used with data transmission at 10 Gb/s soon moving to 25 Gb/s. However, the data demand is pushing the IEEE to quickly define and adopt standards at higher bit rates that current OFI does not meet and must urgently be developed properly addressing cost, power, and space. Two investigators are merging their expertise in photonics and electronics to strategically target the need for an infrastructure solution to support IoT. They are teaming up with three Canadian industry partners from the hardware supply chain for data centres. Intengent is a design house of high-speed optoelectronics in III-V. Reflex Photonics is a transceiver manufacturer. Huawei Canada is developing and building next-generation data centres. The co-PIs, Prof. Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur from McGill University and Prof. Glenn Cowan from Concordia University, are dynamic, newly appointed associate professors who will train a total of 11 students with invaluable skills to the benefit of Canadian industry. The project is also a top priority for the partners, enabling them to further establish themselves in the market.