Credo Technology Group and a coalition of optical technology companies have launched the Short-Reach Micro-Emitter Optics (SRMO) Workstream within the Open Compute Project (OCP) Community to standardise infrastructure for AI data centres.
The initiative aims to create a technical specification for high-speed interconnects deployed across scale-up and scale-out fabrics, with plans to submit the formal standards document for OCP approval in 2027.
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Initial participants joining the project include BizLink, ams OSRAM, Heraeus Covantics, AFL, Foxlink, YOFC, and SENKO.
The initiative addresses the intense bandwidth and workload constraints facing modern infrastructure.
Rather than forcing a small number of optical channels to transmit at extreme data rates, micro-emitter systems utilise grids of micron-scale light sources operating in parallel at balanced speeds.
This layout provides layer-zero redundancy to boost infrastructure reliability while improving bandwidth density and electrical efficiency across short-reach connections.
Credo product associate vice-president L Bhupathi said: “As AI workloads scale from thousands to tens of thousands of accelerators, the industry needs a standardised approach to wide, parallel optical connectivity — not a patchwork of components that do not fit together or interoperate.
“Launching the SRMO Workstream reflects Credo’s commitment to solving the interconnect challenges facing AI infrastructure collaboratively, alongside those who will build, deploy, and depend on this ecosystem.
“We believe that defining specifications, developed through industry collaboration, is the fastest path to bringing wide, parallel optics to scale.”
The group’s technical framework will define shared criteria for link power, energy efficiency, signalling, parallelism, and optical link budgets. It will also outline common form factors for module footprints, connector dimensions, and regulatory compliance.
These guidelines will give data centre operators and hardware designers access to interoperable hardware, more secure supply chains, and faster rollout times.
Credo supplies connectivity hardware to hyperscale and enterprise facilities.
Its product range includes ZeroFlap Active Electrical Cables, optical transceivers, silicon photonics photonic integrated circuits, digital signal processors, Ethernet and PCIe retimers, OmniConnect memory and chip interconnects, and the PILOT analytics platform.
