Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) 1.0 Specification Launch

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Ultra Ethernet is revolutionizing networking for scale AI and HPC workloads, building on Ethernet’s 50+-year legacy with powerful new capabilities for high bandwidth, low latency performance. The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), founded in 2022, is enhancing Ethernet’s capabilities by delivering an open, interoperable, network specification that details a new high-performance communications stack tailored to the increasing network demands of large-scale high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems and workloads. The specification is based on the new Ultra Ethernet Transport (UET) and the industry standard libfabric API. UET leans heavily on HPE Slingshot interconnect from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for functionality and over the past several years, HPE Slingshot has driven libfabric technology adoption.  Today,  the world’s three most powerful  supercomputers depends on the HPE Slingshot interconnect.

Today, the UEC marks a major milestone with the release of its 1.0 specification. This milestone defines a new industry standard that has the performance of a bespoke supercomputing interconnect. It is as ubiquitous and cost-effective as Ethernet and has the scalability of modern datacenter networks.

We’re proud of the role HPE has played in forming the UEC in 2022 when we donated our “HPC Ethernet” specification to the foundation. Since then, HPE has played a crucial role in UEC’s rapid expansion. With over 120 member companies and 1,500+ active members, UEC has become the fastest-growing group in Linux Foundation’s history. As the centerpiece of the UEC 1.0 specification,  approximately 75% of the Ultra Ethernet Transport Protocol (UET) draws from the HPE Slingshot transport, a proven technology deployed in leadership class supercomputers around the world.

HPE’s key contributions to UEC 1.0 specification include:

• Scalable transport solutions derived from HPE Slingshot
• Industry-adopted libfabric as the north-bound network API
• Security as a foundational principle, leveraging the scalable key encryption of HPE Slingshot
• Advanced link technology inspired by HPE Slingshot
• End-to-end congestion management for optimal network efficiency
• Early adoption of Ultra Ethernet-like features in Cassini NICs, first shipped in 2021

HPE remains committed to the UEC and, in conjunction with our industry partners, will continue to refine and enhance the UEC specification and technology.  As a leader in supercomputing, HPE will continue pioneering networking innovations supporting the industry’s most demanding HPC and AI workloads.