Marvell Blogs

Marvell Blogs

October 14, 2025

AI Scale Up Goes for Distance with 9-meter 800G AEC from Infraeo and Marvell

By Winnie Wu, Senior Director Product Marketing at Marvell

Welcome to the beginning of row-scale computing.

At the 2025 OCP Global Summit, Marvell and Infraeo will showcase a breakthrough in high-speed interconnect technology — a 9-meter active electrical cable (AEC) capable of transmitting 800G across standard copper. The demonstration will take place in the Marvell booth #B1.

This latest innovation brings data center architecture one step closer to full row-scale AI system design, allowing copper connections that stretch across seven racks - that’s nearly the length of a standard 10-rack row. It builds on the prior achievement by Marvell of a 7-meter AEC demonstrated at OFC 2025, pushing high-speed copper technology even further beyond what was thought possible.

Pushing the Boundaries of Copper

Until now, copper connections in large-scale AI systems have been limited by reach. Traditional electrical cables lose signal quality as distance increases, restricting system architects to a few meters between servers or racks. The 9-meter AEC changes that equation.

By combining high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) with advanced noise reduction and signal integrity engineering, the new design extends copper’s effective range well beyond conventional limits, maintaining clean, low-latency data transfer over distances once thought achievable only with optical fiber.

This advancement not only pushes the physical boundaries of copper but also extends its role in rack-scale AI infrastructure. Data centers can now use longer copper connections to link servers, accelerators, and switches across multiple racks, which improves connectivity reliability, a crucial factor for scalable AI clusters and reduces overall system cost.

A Step Toward Row-Scale Architectures

A 9-meter copper connection effectively enables row-scale system design, where compute and storage elements can be distributed across nearly an entire row of racks while still performing as a unified, low-latency system.

For hyperscale AI deployments, this means greater architectural freedom: GPUs and accelerators can be organized more efficiently, thermal zones can be optimized, and rack layouts can be tuned for power and cooling without the bandwidth constraints that shorter copper connections once imposed.

Equally important, the technology preserves the signal integrity and low error rates required for AI workloads that depend on precise, high-throughput data movement. In testing, the 9-meter AEC has demonstrated stable and low BER transmission - a requirement for AI clusters to perform at the highest efficiency and reliability.

The Future of High-Speed Copper Connectivity

The introduction of a 9-meter AEC represents a shift in what copper interconnects can do for the AI era. It shows that with the right DSP innovation and high-speed cable engineering, copper can continue to evolve alongside ever-increasing bandwidth demands.

Marvell and Infraeo’s collaboration highlights how material science and signal processing can work together to keep copper relevant, efficient, and high-performing in next-generation data centers. As AI scale-up continues, extending copper’s reach may prove to be one of the most practical paths toward faster, more flexible infrastructure, ensuring that performance and efficiency travel the full length of the row.

 

# # # 

This blog contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future events or achievements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contemplated in this blog. Forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, including those described in the “Risk Factors” section of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed by us from time to time with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and no person assumes any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 

Tags: AI, AI infrastructure, networking for AI training workloads, Networking, data center interconnect, Optical Connectivity, Optical Interconnect

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Accelerated Infrastructure is the Foundation of AI