Keysight announced the AresONE 1600GE, a scalable 1.6T Ethernet AI workload emulation platform intended to validate next-generation AI fabrics operating over emerging 224G SerDes electrical lanes. Keysight says the platform is designed for network equipment and silicon chip manufacturers, hyperscalers, and AI data center operators that need to emulate large-scale AI compute nodes and validate AI fabrics before and after deployment.
The company is positioning AresONE 1600GE for testing problems that show up as the industry moves to higher data rates and higher AI switch radix via fan-out of 800GE and 1600GE ports. Keysight calls out link integrity over 224G lanes, congestion behavior under microbursts, and realistic emulation of AI collective communications as specific validation challenges at these speeds.
Keysight’s approach pairs the AresONE 1600GE hardware with Keysight AI Data Center Builder (KAI DC Builder) software. With KAI DC Builder, Keysight says the platform can emulate real-world AI workloads, including multiple full-stack RoCEv2 connections and a range of collective communication patterns, with integrated data collection and analytics to help teams assess fabric KPIs under conditions that “closely mirror production environments.”
On the hardware side, Keysight says the rack-mount system provides four OSFP 1600 ports, with fan-out configurations of 1 × 1600GE, 2 × 800GE, 4 × 400GE, or 8 × 200GE over 224G SerDes electrical lanes. The company also says the platform supports optical and electrical link validation, including forward error correction (FEC) and physical coding behavior, and Layer 2/3 protocol and traffic analysis, with the goal of correlating signal integrity, protocol behavior, and application performance in a single platform.
Keysight also claims “high-performance processing and memory” to support automated, repeatable testing and “seamless lab and data center integration” for day-to-day operation across development and validation cycles. It also integrates with Keysight IxNetwork for high-scale Layer 2/3 protocol and traffic emulation “at lane speed,” according to the announcement.
Ram Periakaruppan, Vice President and General Manager, Keysight’s Network Test and Security Solutions, said, “With AresONE 1600GE, Keysight provides hyperscalers and other AI innovators a practical, proven way to validate next-generation network devices and infrastructure under real-world conditions, enabling faster deployment with greater confidence and significantly less risk.”
Source: Keysight
