I was playing around with Google Cloud Run the other day and stumbled upon something rather fascinating. I’d created a simple Python application with just two files - main.py and requirements.txt - and decided to deploy it using the --source flag. What happened next absolutely blew my mind.

In traditional switch hardware, data is sent over optical fibre using pluggable transceiver modules (SFP, QSFP, etc.) that slot into cages on the switch faceplate. These modules convert electrical signals from the switch ASIC into light and back, with each link carrying tens or hundreds of gigabits per second. Co-packaged optics (CPO) changes this paradigm by moving the photonic engines into the switch package itself. In a co-packaged design, the laser diodes, modulators and detectors are…

After listening to the insightful Heavy Networking podcast episode 782, I felt compelled to delve deeper into the intricacies of AI data centre networking. The episode shed light on the challenges and solutions in automating networks for AI workloads, prompting me to explore the architectural distinctions and considerations in AI cluster networks.