Ethernet Alliance’s 2024 Ethernet Roadmap
The Ethernet Alliance just released its 2024 Ethernet Roadmap to graphically inform the ICT industry of Ethernet’s past, present and exciting future.
Since 2015, the Ethernet Alliance has published versions of its Ethernet Roadmap, providing an easy-to-understand, illustrated means of keeping informed of the latest Ethernet updates and advancements. The latest Ethernet Roadmap is made up of two main sections:
Side 1: An illustrated map detailing the various Ethernet speeds and application spaces, including Automotive, Enterprise, Service Providers, Automation, and Cloud Providers. Newly added in the 2024 edition are Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and the impact it will have on the evolution of Ethernet.
Side 2: Visualising the Ethernet ecosystem and related technologies, it charts the latest interfaces and nomenclature, fatter pipes, and speeds. It further details the path to a single lane chart, signalling methods, optical evolution, and a new section on sustainability.
Emerging Application Areas – AI and Sustainability
2024 has seen the emergence of a new killer app in the Ethernet industry: AI/ML. This bandwidth-hungry application is propelling Ethernet speeds across the 800 Gbps threshold and beyond. To meet AI’s ever-increasing bandwidth demands, the architecture within AI-driven data centres is evolving to include a blend of copper and fibre solutions. Ethernet is evolving to meet the market demands for AI/ML services with continued progression towards higher speed interfaces, the widening variety of interconnect options, and advancements in power efficiency.
Also, new in 2024 is a section on sustainability that addresses Ethernet’s energy appetite. It offers a detailed diagram of the progress made throughout the last 12 years and lays out the challenges Ethernet must overcome in order to improve energy efficiency and continue to evolve with industry sustainability pledges.
Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities That Lie Ahead
As Ethernet continues its mission to deliver reliable “you plug it in and it just works” connectivity, the 2024 Ethernet Roadmap provides the guidance needed to navigate through the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
The Ethernet Alliance encourages all of us to add the Ethernet Roadmap to as many of our presentations, webinars and articles as possible (please attribute Ethernet Alliance as the source of the Roadmap artwork) to get the word out to the wider marketplace.
Click here to download the Ethernet Alliance Roadmap for free.