Broadcom Launches Tomahawk 6 - 102.4 Tbps Switch

Channel Post MEA

3 days ago

Broadcom has announced that it is now shipping the Tomahawk 6 switch series, delivering the world's first 102.4 Terabits/sec of switching capacity in a single chip – double the bandwidth of any Ethernet switch currently available on the market. With unprecedented scale, energy efficiency, and AI-optimized features, Tomahawk 6 is built to power the next generation of scale-up and scale-out AI networks, delivering unmatched flexibility with support for 100G/200G SerDes and co-packaged optics (CPO). It offers the industry's most comprehensive set of AI routing features and interconnect options, designed to meet the demands of AI clusters with more than one million XPUs.
'Tomahawk 6 is not just an upgrade – it's a breakthrough,' said Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. 'It marks a turning point in AI infrastructure design, combining the highest bandwidth, power efficiency, and adaptive routing features for scale-up and scale-out networks into one platform. Demand from customers and partners has been unprecedented. Tomahawk 6 is poised to make a rapid and dramatic impact on the deployment of large AI clusters.'
'AI clusters are scaling from tens to thousands of accelerators, turning the network into a critical bottleneck while expected to deliver unprecedented bandwidth and latency,' said Kunjan Sobhani, lead semiconductor analyst, Bloomberg Intelligence. 'By breaking the 100Tbps barrier and unifying scale-up and scale-out Ethernet, Broadcom's Tomahawk 6 gives hyperscalers an open, standards-based fabric—free of proprietary lock-in—and a clear, flexible path to the next wave of AI infrastructure.'
Flexible Connectivity Options with Co-Packaged Optics Support
The innovations of Tomahawk 6 extend far beyond the chip, delivering full system-level power efficiency and cost savings, enabled by Broadcom's best-in-class SerDes and optics ecosystem. With industry-leading 200G SerDes, it provides the longest reach for passive copper interconnect, enabling high-efficiency, low-latency system design with the highest reliability and lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). The Tomahawk 6 family includes a groundbreaking option for 1,024 100G SerDes on a single chip, enabling customers to deploy AI clusters with extended copper reach and efficient use of XPUs and optics with native 100G interfaces.
For systems requiring optical connectivity, Tomahawk 6 will also be available with co-packaged optics, providing the lowest power and latency while reducing link flaps and improving long-term reliability – essential advantages for hyperscale AI network operators. The Tomahawk 6 CPO solution builds upon the technology Broadcom delivered with CPO versions of Tomahawk 4 and 5.
AI-Optimized Routing for Scale-Up and 1M+ XPU Scale-Out Networks
Tomahawk 6's architecture enables unified networks for AI training and inference at unprecedented scale. Cognitive Routing 2.0 in Tomahawk 6 features advanced telemetry, dynamic congestion control, rapid failure detection, and packet trimming, enabling global load balancing and adaptive flow control. These capabilities are tailored for modern AI workloads, including mixture-of-experts, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and reasoning models.
With scale-out and scale-up networking support, Tomahawk 6 meets all networking demands for emerging 100,000 to one million XPU clusters. Leveraging Ethernet for both scale-out and scale-up interfaces offers significant advantages for network operators, enabling them to use a unified technology stack and consistent operational tools across the entire AI fabric. It also enables fungible interfaces where cloud operators can dynamically partition their XPU assets into the optimal configuration for different customer workloads.
The momentum behind Tomahawk 6 and Ethernet for all backend networking needs is unmistakable. Multiple deployments are planned with more than 100,000 XPUs using Tomahawk 6 for both the scale-out and scale-up interconnect.
Open Scale-Up Innovation with the Scale Up Ethernet (SUE) Framework
Tomahawk 6 is designed to be part of a vibrant, open scale-up Ethernet ecosystem. To this end, Broadcom is enabling the industry with open specifications for efficient scale-up interfaces for XPUs and NICs. The SUE Framework was announced by Broadcom at Open Compute Project (OCP) Dublin in April 2025.
Open, End-to-End Platform for AI Infrastructure
Broadcom's end-to-end Ethernet AI platform includes the Tomahawk and Jericho switch families, Thor NICs, Agera retimers, Sian optical DSPs, co-packaged optics, and software development kits – delivering a complete solution for next-generation AI infrastructure.
Tomahawk 6 is a key proof point for Broadcom's commitment to enabling Ethernet for both scale-up and scale-out. Tomahawk 6 is Ultra Ethernet Consortium compliant and supports modern AI transports, congestion signaling, and telemetry for large, distributed training environments. It also supports arbitrary network topologies, including scale-up, Clos, rail-only, rail-optimized, and torus.
Tomahawk 6 Series Key Benefits: 102.4 Tbps of Ethernet switching in a single chip
Scale-up cluster size of 512 XPUs
100,000+ XPUs in a two-tier scale-out network at 200 Gbps/link
200G or 100G PAM4 SerDes with support for long-reach passive copper
Option for co-packaged optics
Cognitive Routing 2.0
Unmatched power and system efficiency for AI training and inference
Works with any NIC or XPU Ethernet endpoint
Support for arbitrary topologies, including scale-up, Clos, rail-only, rail-optimized, and torus
Compliant with Ultra Ethernet Consortium specifications 0 0