Broadcom touted a major milestone in the use of its co-packaged optics (CPO), claiming deployments with Meta that resulted in one million cumulative 400 Gb/s (400G) equivalent port device hours without a single link flap.

The chip giant’s CPO tech, which brings together silicon photonics with a digital signal processor, is designed to boost performance for networks running AI workloads, enabling better performance while using less power.

In a Meta facility where components were tested for thermal performance and reliability, engineers found Broadcom’s CPO solutions continuously ran without any brief connectivity disruptions. For firms like Meta that are running vast training workloads for AI models, the loss of a link or an accelerator could significantly impact performance and run-time.

Near Margalit, VP and GM of Broadcom’s optical systems division, said the one-million-port-hour milestone “shows that CPO is not just a research concept – it is production-proven and ready to scale.”

Broadcom has been working on CPO solutions for some time.

The vendor unveiled its first co-packaged switch, dubbed Humboldt, in early 2021, which combined its Tomahawk 4 switch silicon with integrated optical interconnects. In more recent years, Broadcom has been working with chip manufacturing giants Corning to better integrate CPOs into chip platforms to reduce AI-induced data center strains.

Broadcom’s latest CPO iteration, its third-generation solution, was unveiled back in May and features 200G per-land bandwidth, with the firm hard at work doubling that for its upcoming fourth generation.

“This milestone reinforces the long-term vision for co-packaged optics as the foundation for next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure,” Margalit added. “Broadcom is proud to lead this transformation with our growing ecosystem of partners.”

Meta’s tests of Broadcom’s CPO offerings come as the tech giant is building out its already vast infrastructure. Alongside bolstering its own data centers, Meta has also signed multi-billion-dollar deals with CoreWeave and Google as it looks for more computing power to support its AI expansions. A further $20 billion deal is reportedly in the works with Oracle.