Nokia Tests Ultra Ethernet for AI Data Centre Networks

Nokia, working with Keysight Technologies, has completed end-to-end testing of Ultra Ethernet Transport (UET) traffic across its switching platforms, including the Nokia 7220 Interconnect Router (IXR) and the Nokia 7250 IXR. 

The test shows that Nokia is ready to integrate Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) Specification 1.0 into its data centre networking portfolio, offering AI and high-performance computing (HPC) customers lossless, low-latency solutions at extreme scale.

“AI is changing the game when it comes to expected performance in AI data centre networks,” says Rudy Hoebeke, Vice President, Software Product Management at Nokia.

“This successful demonstration with Keysight of UET traffic over Nokia’s 7220 IXR and 7250 IXR product families demonstrates our commitment to the UEC and provides clear evidence that Nokia is a leader in this evolution, with one of the industry’s most robust portfolios for HPC/AI-ready data centre networking.”

AI demands and the role of UET

The growth of AI is reshaping data centre design and operations. Training and inference workloads depend on real-time responses, so even minimal packet loss can disrupt progress and delay completion. Combined with the vast bandwidth needed, traditional Ethernet networks are stretched to their limits.

UEC Specification 1.0 introduces the UET layer to address these challenges. By using Ethernet as its foundation, UET provides a pathway to update AI and HPC data centres with new architectures, standards and best practices. For operators, this means that established Ethernet infrastructure can be modernised with compatibility and interoperability at scale.

As a UEC member, Nokia is committed to UET as a cost-effective and widely compatible protocol that can be integrated into AI and HPC environments.

Testing Nokia platforms with Keysight

In the joint procedure, Nokia and Keysight tested 800 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) interfaces using traffic generated by Keysight’s AresONE 800GE-8P-QDD-M testing platform. This testing spanned all variants of the Nokia 7220 IXR-H5 and the Nokia 7250 IXR-10e, both running the SR Linux Network Operating System (NOS).

Alongside UET traffic, the companies tested Remote Direct Memory Access over Converged Ethernet (RoCEv2) at 800GE flows in parallel on the same network. RoCEv2 is a standard for high-throughput, low-latency communication between servers in data centres, and its coexistence with UET highlights the openness and flexibility of Nokia’s networking portfolio.

These features are available commercially today through Nokia’s data centre fabric solutions, which support both AI-ready and UEC-compatible deployments. Operators can therefore adopt UET immediately while maintaining other protocols such as RoCEv2 and Data Centre Quantised Congestion Notification (DCQCN).

Scaling networks for the AI era

For data centre leaders, UET has the potential to underpin the next generation of AI and HPC infrastructure. The new protocol is being designed to support scale-out fabrics large enough for AI clusters that can reach more than 100,000 nodes. This requires innovation across all layers, from physical connections to transport protocols and applications.

“This is an inflection point in the networking world as a new standard is adopted for AI networking,” says Ram Periakaruppan, Vice President and General Manager, Network Applications & Security business at Keysight.

“Ultra Ethernet is enabling the next generation scale-out fabrics that will power 100K+ AI clusters with innovation from PHY/Link layer to Transport and application layer. This test with Nokia represents another significant milestone in the evolution of networking for AI. 

“At Keysight, we’re helping shape this standard by co-leading UEC working groups and ensuring specifications are practical, verifiable, and interoperable. With our early interoperability efforts, we’re accelerating adoption and unlocking the next wave of innovation.”

By combining Nokia’s switching platforms with Keysight’s validation technology, this collaboration gives operators confidence that UET can be implemented effectively within live AI data centre environments.

Delivering interoperable AI-ready networks

The validation of UET traffic on 800GE interfaces confirms that Nokia is aligning its data centre portfolio with the requirements of AI and HPC workloads. 

By demonstrating coexistence with RoCEv2 and building solutions that integrate seamlessly into Ethernet-based environments, Nokia positions itself as a vendor capable of delivering interoperable, future-ready networks.

The demonstration reflects a broader shift within the industry, where data centre operators require networking platforms that can deliver both scalability and resilience under the extreme demands of AI. 

With UET now entering practical testing, and with vendors like Nokia and Keysight working to ensure compliance and interoperability, data centres have a pathway towards the high-performance fabrics needed for the AI era.