Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a revolutionary technology that is transforming many industries and aspects of our daily lives from medicine to financial services and entertainment. The rapid evolution of real-time gaming, virtual reality, generative AI and metaverse applications are changing the ways in which network, compute, memory, storage and interconnect I/O interact. As AI continues to advance at unprecedented pace networks need to adapt to the colossal growth in traffic transiting hundreds and thousands of processors with trillions of transactions and gigabits of throughput. As AI quickly moves out of labs and research projects toward mainstream adoption it demands increases in network and computing resources.

Arista provides the best solution for GPU and Storage interconnects driving AI/ML workloads using IP/Ethernet switches. Exponential growth in AI applications requires standardized transports to build power efficient interconnects and overcome administrative, scale-out complexities of existing approaches. Building an IP/Ethernet architecture with high-performance Arista switches maximizes the performance of the application while at the same time optimizing network operations.

Arista 7800 AI Spine
Arista Networks and Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC)

Modern AI applications need high-bandwidth, lossless, low-latency, scalable, multi-tenant networks that interconnect hundreds and thousands of GPUs at high speed from 100Gbps to 800Gbps and beyond.

Key Arista advantages in AI Networking include:

  • Arista Etherlink™: Arista Etherlink is standards-based Ethernet with UEC-compatible features. These include dynamic load balancing, congestion control and reliable packet delivery to all NICs supporting RoCE. Arista Etherlink will be supported across a broad range of 800G systems and line cards based on Arista EOSⓇ. As the UEC specification is finalized, Arista AI platforms will be upgradeable to be compliant.
  • Network Platforms: The 7060X5 series and 7388X5 series offer a rich breadth of connectivity options in a range of systems from 800Gbps per port to 25.6Tbps in a choice of 1, 2 and 4U form factors. The modular 7800R3 series high performance router is 800G ready and delivers up to 460 Tbps of throughput today with 576 ports of 400G in a flexible and consistent architecture that scales AI networks to tens of thousands of end systems. Customers can leverage these network platforms to build a high performing AI network in a simple and scalable manner.
  • Network Operating Software: Arista Extensible Operating System (EOS) is the core of Arista cloud networking solutions for next-generation data centers and high-performance AI networks. Arista EOS provides all the necessary tools to achieve a premium lossless, high bandwidth and low latency network. EOS supports rich features for traffic management configuration, flexible and adjustable buffer allocation schemes and enables features such as PFC (Priority Flow Control) and DCQCN (Data Center Quantized Congestion Notification) to support RoCE deployments across Arista networking platforms.
  • Open Ecosystem: Arista has fostered strong partnerships and collaborations within the industry contributing to an open ecosystem for AI networking. Ethernet has a broad ecosystem with multiple system vendors, choices in silicon vendors, interconnect and optics that drive open standard solutions that interoperate flexibly across vendors. In short, customers have the flexibility and freedom of choice when it comes to building AI solutions with Arista’s solutions and are never locked-in.
  • Interoperable: AI networks often interface with a range of storage and general purpose compute systems. An Ethernet-based AI network provides efficient and flexible network designs that avoid pipeline bottlenecks through the multitude of systems. Customers have the option to deploy Arista’s consistent set of solutions across general purpose compute, Data Center, Storage and AI networks.
  • Visibility and Telemetry: Arista's platforms with EOS provide extensive telemetry capabilities for AI networking. They enable real-time monitoring, analytics, and visualization of network data, offering insights into network performance, traffic patterns, and resource utilization. The streaming telemetry features facilitate proactive troubleshooting, analytics, capacity planning, and optimization, helping organizations maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their AI infrastructure.
  • Total Cost of Ownership: Arista's solutions are designed to provide high performance networks at the best value. Arista’s open, interoperable solutions and emphasis on operational efficiency, automation, and streamlined management workflows contribute to lower operational costs and overall total cost of ownership (TCO) for AI networking deployments.

Arista’s Etherlink for Standards Compatibility

As the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) completes their extensions to improve Ethernet for AI workloads, Arista is building forwards compatible products to support UEC standards as they firm up in 2025. Arista Etherlink™ is standards based Ethernet with UEC compatible features. These include dynamic load balancing, congestion control and reliable packet delivery to all NICs supporting ROCE. Arista Etherlink will be supported across a broad range of 400G and 800G systems based on EOS. As the UEC specification is finalized, Arista AI platforms will be upgradeable to be compliant.

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