Chelsio has launched its seventh-generation AI Interconnect Platform, an Ethernet-based lineup of SmartNICs, storage controllers, and DPUs aimed at AI training and inference clusters, disaggregated storage, and high-performance data center networking. The platform’s headline capability is native 400 GbE with Unified RDMA support (iWARP and RoCEv2), targeting low-latency, high-bandwidth links for GPU clusters and storage fabrics.
Chelsio’s seventh-generation Unified Wire architecture underpins the platform, spanning networking, storage, and security offloads while keeping a common hardware and software base across the product families. The company says SmartNICs and storage controllers are available immediately, while the T7 DPU is available as an evaluation platform, with production availability planned for December 2026.
On the wire side, the platform supports 1/10/25/40/50/100/200/400 GbE with sustained line-rate throughput. For AI and HPC fabrics, Chelsio lists lossless Ethernet features, advanced congestion management, and “GPU-optimized data paths,” along with 400 Gb RDMA via iWARP and RoCEv2. For storage, the platform includes hardware offloads for NVMe/TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and TOE, targeting JBOF and enterprise storage acceleration.
Chelsio also lists a programmable data path for workload-specific inline processing, plus on-chip crypto engines supporting QUIC, kTLS, and IPsec/TLS/kTLS. Virtualization features called out include SR-IOV, vSwitch, and container offloads. On the mechanical and integration front, the platform spans PCIe Gen5, OCP 3.0, and mezzanine form factors.
For operators, the practical takeaway is straightforward: 400 GbE RDMA on Ethernet keeps pushing more AI-cluster traffic onto standard network ecosystems, but the real work is still in the fabric details—lossless behavior, congestion control, and CPU bypass are where these adapters either keep GPUs busy or become the next bottleneck.
Chelsio’s product families include S7xx SmartNICs (based on S7x silicon), N7-based storage controller adapters, and T7 DPUs (based on T7 silicon). Shipping now, the company lists S7250, S7450, and S7450-OCP SmartNICs (dual- and quad-port 1/10/25/50 GbE), S72200 and S72200-OCP SmartNICs (dual-port 40/50/100/200 GbE), and the S71400 SmartNIC (single-port 400 GbE supporting 4×100 G and 2×200 G modes). It also lists T72200/T7450 storage controllers in PCIe and OCP form factors, delivering offloads for NVMe/TCP, NVMe-oF, iSCSI, RDMA, and enterprise storage workloads.
“With T7, we are positioning Ethernet as a scalable, standards-based AI interconnect—delivering the performance required for large-scale AI training while preserving the flexibility and cost advantages of open networking,” said Kianoosh Naghshineh, CEO of Chelsio.
Source: Chelsio
