The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) has announced this week that the next-generation interconnection consortium has grown to 55 members. And as the group works towards developing the initial version of their ultra-fast Ethernet standard, they have released some of the first technical details on the upcoming standard.

Formed in the summer of 2023, the UEC aims to develop a new standard for interconnection for AI and HPC datacenter needs, serving as a de-facto (if not de-jure) alternative to InfiniBand, which is largely under the control of NVIDIA these days. The UEC began to accept new members back in November, and just in five months' time it gained 45 new members, which highlights massive interest for the new technology. The consortium now boasts 55 members and 715 industry experts, who are working across eight technical groups. 

There is a lot of work at hand for the UEC, as the group has laid out in their latest development blog post, as the consortium works to to build a unified Ethernet-based communication stack for high-performance networking supporting artificial intelligence and high-performance computing clusters. The consortium's technical objectives include developing specifications, APIs, and source code for Ultra Ethernet communications, updating existing protocols, and introducing new mechanisms for telemetry, signaling, security, and congestion management. In particular, Ultra Ethernet introduces the UEC Transport (UET) for higher network utilization and lower tail latency to speed up RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) operation over Ethernet. Key features include multi-path packet spraying, flexible ordering, and advanced congestion control, ensuring efficient and reliable data transfer.

These enhancements are designed to address the needs of large AI and HPC clusters — with separate profiles for each type of deployment — though everything is done in a surgical manner to enhance the technology, but reuse as much of the existing Ethernet as possible to maintain cost efficiency and interoperability.

The consortium's founding members include AMD, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, Eviden (an Atos Business), HPE, Intel, Meta, and Microsoft. After the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) began to accept new members in October, 2023, numerous industry heavyweights have joined the group, including Baidu, Dell, Huawei, IBM, Nokia, Lenovo, Supermicro, and Tencent.

The consortium currently plans to release the initial 1.0 version of the UEC specification publicly sometime in the third quarter of 2024.

"There was always a recognition that UEC was meeting a need in the industry," said J Metz, Chair of the UEC Steering Committee. "There is a strong desire to have an open, accessible, Ethernet-based network specifically designed to accommodate AI and HPC workload requirements. This level of involvement is encouraging; it helps us achieve the goal of broad interoperability and stability."

While it is evident that then Ultra Ethernet Consortium is gaining support across the industry, it is still unclear where other industry behemoths like AWS and Google stand. While the hardware companies involved can design Ultra Ethernet support into their hardware and systems, the technology ultimately exists to serve large datacenter and HPC system operators. So it will be interesting to see what interest they take in (and how quickly they adopt) the nascent Ethernet backbone technology once hardware incorporating it is ready.

Wi-Fi 7 products have slowly started gaining market traction, particularly in the residential market (home consumer segment). The SMB / SME / enterprise market is traditionally a few quarters behind this, given the longer validation cycles. Earlier this year, Ubiquiti Networks introduced their first Wi-Fi 7 access point - the U7 Pro. Today, NETGEAR Business is launching the WBE750 Wi-Fi 7 Access Point (AP) in the Pro Wi-Fi lineup for businesses with heavy wireless Internet use.

The benefits of Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) have been covered in multiple pieces earlier. The presence of a relatively interference-free 6 GHz band, wider channels (up to 320 MHz wide), and technical improvements to address interference and latency make the new standard an attractive upgrade for Wi-Fi users.

Unlike the Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Pro's entry-level focus (with 2x2 configurations in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands), the WBE750 opts for 4x4 configurations in each of the three bands. Correspondingly, the AP is able to support more concurrent connected clients (600 vs. 300), and obviously provide more bandwidth (18.4 Gbps vs. 9.2 Gbps theoretical). The pricing is also correspondingly higher ($700 vs. $190). The WBE750 also incorporates a NBASE-T (10 GbE / 5 GbE / 2.5 GbE / 1 GbE) RJ-45 uplink port with PoE++ support. Eight SSIDs are supported per channel.

Similar to other networking equipment vendors in this space, NETGEAR is also pushing for recurring subscription-based revenue with the product. A 1-year subscription to the single-pane cloud-based management interface (NETGEAR Insight) is included in the $700 purchase price.

NETGEAR Insight is particularly useful for professional installers who can manage multiple sites on the go, even from a mobile device.

The WBE750 joins a number of other Wi-Fi 6 / 6E APs in the Pro Wi-Fi line serving a wide range of deployment requirements. NETGEAR has been introducing multiple products in their Insight-manageable line over the last few quarters. As a result, they are able to offer a total network solution (gateways / routers / switches / APs) that can be managed from a single pane. As part of its Pro focus, NETGEAR is offering free site design services to installers along with expert technical support. NETGEAR's Pro WiFi Design Services (network design, product selection guide, troubleshooting, and training support) aims to be a key differentiation aspect compared to other similar offerings in the SMB / SME market.

The WBE750 is powered by a Qualcomm solution - the Waikiki Wi-Fi 7 chipset incorporated in the Networking Pro 1220 platform.

The new WBE750 AP is available for purchase today for $700.