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Taara, a company specializing in free-space optical communication, just released the Beam — a shoebox-sized device that uses its proprietary Photonics Platform to deliver up to 25 Gbps of bidirectional throughput. More than that, the company says that it has a range of 10 kilometers and claims that it has ultra-low latency, making it ideal for AI applications.
This isn’t the first optical transceiver developed by the company, as it has been working on the technology since 2017 at Google ’s X development lab. In fact, Taara says that its Lightbridge device has already been deployed in over 20 countries alongside carriers including T-Mobile, Vodafone, Airtel, and Digicel. While this offers a longer range of 20 km, it has a slightly lower 20 Gbps throughput and uses mechanical parts to keep the beam aligned.
On the other hand, Beam uses silicon photonics to deploy an optical phased array with more than a thousand miniature emitters to track, shape, and steer the beams without requiring any moving parts. The company promotes this as an alternative to expensive and time-consuming fiber deployments or the complicated spectrum licensing requirements of radio frequency communications. Its compact size and relatively low power consumption mean that it can easily be deployed in hours instead of weeks or months, and you can install it practically anywhere — from existing towers and cell sites to rooftops and mountain tops — as long as the two transceivers retain line of sight (LOS).
Start-up plans to use terahertz radio frequencies for communication between servers instead of copper or optical connections
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Photonics and high-speed data movement is the next big AI bottleneck
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/optical-transceiver-achieves-up-to-25-gbps-throughput-with-ultra-low-latency-and-10km-range-taara-beam-uses-silicon-photonics-technology-device-about-as-big-as-a-shoebox#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.