Zhaolong Cable Advocates Optimal High-Speed Cabling Selection for Large-Scale AI Clusters Entering 1.6T Interconnect Era

June 20, 2026

Zhaolong Cable China

Overview

Zhaolong Cable emphasized the critical importance of selecting optimal high-speed cabling for large-scale AI clusters entering the 1.6T interconnect era. With increasing AI workloads, data centers face limitations with traditional copper cables, making a transition to advanced solutions like fiber optic cables and Active Optical Cables (AOCs) essential. The company analyzes the characteristics of each cable type from multiple perspectives—bandwidth, latency, power efficiency, cost, and reliability—providing selection guidelines to maximize AI cluster performance. Appropriate cable selection is directly linked to the sustainable scaling of AI infrastructure.

In Depth

Key Findings

Zhaolong Cable has published an article advocating that the selection of appropriate high-speed cabling has a decisive impact on the overall performance and efficiency of large-scale AI clusters entering the 1.6 Terabit/second (1.6T) interconnect era. The explosive growth of AI workloads is creating new challenges that traditional cabling solutions cannot address.

Technical / Clinical Details

Challenges of AI Clusters: Large-scale AI clusters demand ultra-high-speed and low-latency data transmission between GPUs and between GPUs and switches. At 1.6T data rates, signal loss, crosstalk, and power consumption exceed the limits of traditional copper cables.
Cable Types and Selection:
- Copper Cables (DAC, Twinax): Cost-effective for short distances (within a few meters), but signal degradation and power consumption become issues over longer distances. Their applicability is further limited at 1.6T.
- Active Optical Cables (AOC): Convert electrical signals to optical signals and back within the cable, enabling longer distance transmission and lower power consumption. Suitable for mid-range connections within AI clusters.
- Fiber Optic Cables (combined with optical transceivers): Offer the best performance for long-distance transmission, providing high bandwidth and low loss. Particularly suitable for inter-data center connections and long-reach AI fabrics.
Selection Criteria: Zhaolong Cable recommends comprehensively considering bandwidth requirements, transmission distance, power consumption, ease of installation, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when selecting cables.

Background & Context

The increasing complexity and scale of AI models are forcing dramatic changes in data center interconnect infrastructure. High-performance accelerators like NVIDIA GPUs, in particular, require cluster bandwidths of tens of terabits per second through protocols like NVLink and InfiniBand, making innovation in the physical layer technology indispensable.Strategic Significance & Outlook

The evolution of AI will continue to accelerate innovation in the high-speed cable market. Companies like Zhaolong Cable are expected to focus on developing more high-performance optical cable solutions to meet the performance, efficiency, and reliability demands of next-generation AI clusters. Appropriate cable infrastructure is essential for unlocking the full potential of AI computing and supporting the sustainable growth of data centers.

Source: https://www.zhaolongcable.com/The-1-6T-Interconnect-Era-Selecting-Optimal-High-Speed-Cabling-for-Large-Scale-AI-Clusters-id06945745.html

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