Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd (Credo) (NASDAQ: CRDO), an innovator in providing connectivity at scale through fast, reliable, and energy-efficient system solutions, alongside prominent optical technology providers, announced the launch of the Short-Reach Micro-Emitter Optics (SRMO) Workstream dedicated to developing a specification within the Open Compute Project (OCP) Community that will define a new class of high-speed data center interconnects. Among the first to join with Credo include a leading hyperscaler as well as AFL, ams OSRAM, BizLink, Foxlink, Heraeus Covantics, SENKO, and YOFC, bringing together expertise spanning the full optical connectivity stack to advance the development of the wide, parallel optical connectivity ecosystem.

Micro-emitter technology brings new ways of moving volumes of data, while dramatically improving reliability, power efficiency, and bandwidth density. Arrays of micron-scale light sources make up the transmit side of an optical link. Rather than pushing a few optical channels to extreme data rates, many micro-emitters operate in parallel at optimal individual speeds, enabling layer zero redundancy to improve reliability.

The SRMO Workstream was initiated to address the need for interoperable interconnects as wide, parallel micro-emitter technology drives new form factors across rapidly evolving scale-up and scale-out fabrics in AI data centers. The specification, targeted for OCP approval in 2027, will address requirements for link power, efficiency, signaling, parallelism, physical form factors – including module and connector footprint, link budget, and compliance.

By defining specifications, the SRMO Workstream aims to give data center operators, hyperscalers, and system designers access to a broad ecosystem of interoperable components with supply chain resiliency, accelerating time to deployment and fostering continued innovation in optical connectivity.

“As AI workloads scale from thousands to tens of thousands of accelerators, the industry needs a standardized approach to wide, parallel optical connectivity — not a patchwork of components that do not fit together or interoperate,” said L.K. Bhupathi, Associate Vice President of Product at Credo. “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.”

“We continue to advance our micro-emitter, micro-receiver and 3D packaging technologies enabling next-generation wide and parallel AI optical interconnects that support very high bandwidth density,” said Ashkan Seyedi, Vice President and General Manager of Digital Photonics Interconnect at ams OSRAM. “Joining the SRMO Workstream is an important part of our strategy to bring the benefits of reliability, efficiency, and simplicity to connectivity in the AI data center.”

“Realizing the power and density benefits of a micro-emitter approach depends on getting the physical connector interface exactly right, especially as channel counts scale into the thousands,” said Obie Roy, Vice President of Strategic Commercial Development at SENKO Advanced Components, Inc. “The SRMO Workstream represents an important industry effort to establish a common connector interface that can bring a new level of density and reliability in next-generation data center architectures.”