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AI Data Center Power & Performance

Why is power the next critical constraint for AI data centers?

Hardware infrastructure uses 90% of its energy moving data rather than computing it. At the same time, larger AI clusters need more data to move between more components at higher speeds. As AI infrastructure rapidly scales, the massive volume of data movement means increased power usage. Improving the energy efficiency of that data movement can help data centers increase performance while managing power and thermal constraints.

AI relies on data to produce reliable outputs. This means constantly moving data between accelerators, memory, switches, racks and clusters. If that data cannot move quickly and efficiently, it limits the ability of compute resources to generate useful insights. AI performance and infrastructure efficiency rely on high-performance connectivity.

As connection speeds increase, signals become more difficult to transmit reliably. Loss, noise, and other impairments can reduce performance unless those signals are carefully amplified and conditioned. Semtech’s high-performance analog technology helps preserve signal integrity so data can move reliably at the speeds next-generation AI infrastructure requires.
It means increasing the amount of information a connection can carry while improving the energy efficiency of that data movement. For Semtech, that means applying high-performance analog expertise to help customers increase bandwidth, maintain signal integrity and reduce the power required to connect increasingly complex AI systems.
As AI systems grow, larger clusters, more connections and higher data rates increase the amount of data moving across the data center. That puts greater pressure on power, heat and signal integrity. Semtech’s high-performance analog technologies are designed to move more data with less energy across copper and optical links, helping customers increase bandwidth and scale AI infrastructure more efficiently.

Semtech’s Role in AI Data Centers

Where does Semtech fit in the AI data center?

Semtech operates in the high-performance analog connectivity layer that helps move data between compute resources. Its technologies support both copper and optical links, helping amplify, condition, transmit, and receive high-speed signals while addressing the power and signal-integrity challenges created by increasingly complex AI infrastructure.

AI is driving larger clusters, more connections and higher data rates, increasing demand for efficient data movement across the data center. Semtech is expanding its high-performance analog portfolio across copper and optical connectivity to help customers deliver more bandwidth with less power, positioning its technologies across a growing portion of next-generation AI infrastructure.

Semtech partners with customers early in the design process to understand their architectures, performance requirements, and future roadmaps. That allows its engineering teams to develop technologies around real system requirements, and customers accelerate innovation.

Semtech combines decades of specialized, high-speed analog expertise with an increasingly customer-driven development model. The company focuses on solving difficult connectivity problems around bandwidth, power, and signal integrity, while customers in the design phase to develop technologies that emerging architectures require. This positioning is consistent across the event narrative and broader business framework.

Semtech's Connectivity Portfolio & Architecture

Why are both copper and optical connectivity important in AI data centers?

Copper and optical links serve different needs based on distance, bandwidth, power, cost, and system architecture. Copper can be highly efficient for shorter connections, while optical connectivity is essential as distance and bandwidth requirements increase. By providing both, Semtech gives data center designers greater flexibility as their architectures evolve.

Semtech’s expanding portfolio includes technologies such as transimpedance amplifiers, laser drivers, linear redrivers, gain chips, semiconductor optical amplifiers, high-speed photodiodes and continuous-wave lasers. Together, these technologies allow Semtech to address more of the analog connectivity chain across copper and optical infrastructure.

FiberEdge and DirectEdge address high-speed optical connectivity, including technologies used to transmit and receive data over fiber. CopperEdge addresses high-speed electrical connectivity, using technologies like linear redrivers to help maintain signal integrity across copper links. Together, they give Semtech exposure to a wide variety of use cases in AI infrastructure.

As AI networks increase in speed and scale, optical connectivity becomes increasingly important for moving data over longer distances and between more systems. Expanding into areas such as lasers, photodiodes and optical amplification gives Semtech the ability to participate in more of the optical signal path and increase the breadth of its offering.

Semtech is developing technologies for current and next-generation data rates, including the industry’s progression from 800G to 1.6T and 3.2T connectivity. As speeds increase, maintaining signal integrity and controlling power become more challenging, increasing the value of Semtech’s high-performance analog technology.

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