Enabling Technologies for Next Generation Large Scale AI Backend Networking#

Speakers: Guohan Lu (Microsoft), Mehak Mahajan (Broadcom)

• Why: Complements the SRv6 talk with the rest of Microsoft's next-gen backend feature set — high-frequency streaming telemetry and "trimming" — plus an honest read on whether SAI/SONiC can actually support hyperscale AI backends yet.
• What: Microsoft's next-generation backend AI network architecture as clusters grew from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of GPUs: SRv6, High-Frequency Streaming Telemetry (HFST), and trimming, with the driving factors and implementation details, and an assessment of SAI/SONiC readiness. (from abstract only)
• How: Backend networks get distinct requirements from traditional DCs — low latency, high throughput, proactive fault detection — which push traffic engineering and telemetry to first-class features; the talk covers how each is implemented.
• Where applicable: Microsoft-scale AI backend, co-presented with Broadcom — some content will track specific silicon capabilities via SAI. The SAI/SONiC readiness discussion is directly relevant to anyone on the open-networking stack.