Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC)

History

2023: Creation of a consortium

On July 19, 2023, a number of large IT companies announced the formation of the global Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) to create a scalable and efficient communication stack for next-generation networks. They will be created with an eye on high-performance computing (LDC) systems and artificial intelligence.

The consortium included, AMD, Arista Broadcom,,,, Cisco,, and Eviden (Atos) HPE(Intel Microsoft Meta recognized as an extremist organization; activities in the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited). HPC and AI workloads are said to be rapidly evolving and require best-in-class functionality, performance, compatibility, and total cost of ownership - without compromising developers and end users. The Ultra Ethernet solution stack will rely on the ubiquity and flexibility of Ethernet technology to create a next-generation interconnect.

A number of large IT companies announced the formation of a global consortium Ultra Ethernet Consortium

Within the UEC, there will be four working groups responsible for the physical, link and transport layers, as well as the necessary software. The technical objectives of the consortium are to develop specifications, application programming interfaces (APIs) and other components.

Among other things, the characteristics of electrical and optical signals, application program interfaces and data structure will be determined. Specialists will develop link and end-to-end network transport protocols to expand or replace existing solutions.

Joining forces to develop a common set of standards to improve Ethernet for hyperscale AI and HPC workloads will help ensure continued innovation in the future, said Steve Scott, vice president of hardware architecture at Microsoft Azure.[1]

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