{"id":24655,"date":"2026-04-10T22:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T21:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/?p=24655"},"modified":"2026-04-10T22:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T21:41:09","slug":"using-inexpensive-microleds-microsoft-networking-innovation-aims-to-make-datacenters-more-efficient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/?p=24655","title":{"rendered":"Using inexpensive MicroLEDs, Microsoft networking innovation aims to make datacenters more efficient"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before appearing on a screen in your hand or on your desk, this story and its photos existed as pulses of light, fired by lasers, that passed through strands of glass as fine as a human hair<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Chris Welsch, Microsoft<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an invisible miracle of engineering. Because data and services are delivered to us seamlessly through fiber optical cables, we don\u2019t think about it.
\nInnovative changes are coming in what one Microsoft expert called the \u201cdigital plumbing\u201d that makes that magic happen.
\nA Microsoft invention that uses inexpensive MicroLEDs and is designed to be a more efficient alternative to cables that transmit data within datacenters today is expected to be commercialized with industry partners late in 2027, said the project\u2019s lead researcher.
\nThe development of this new system is timely. With the rapid growth of AI and cloud demand, existing networking technologies are increasingly constrained by physical limits in distance, power consumption, density and reliability.
\nThe new MicroLED technology, designed by the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge, U.K. in collaboration with teams from Azure Core, Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure, and Microsoft 365, has several advantages over the kinds of cables currently in use.
\nThe researchers expect that it will use about 50% less energy than mainstream laser-based optical cables, based on the team\u2019s lab tests of the new system and estimates of how it will perform when deployed.
\nCiting the team\u2019s peer-reviewed research, the lead researcher on the project, Paolo Costa, said it will also be less expensive to make and will have other benefits, like longer lifespan. The Microsoft team has recently completed a proof of concept project with MediaTek and other suppliers to miniaturize the MicroLED technology and incorporate it into a transceiver device that is compatible with equipment used in datacenters today.
\nThe new technology uses inexpensive and commercially available MicroLEDs instead of lasers and a different kind of commercially available cable, generically known as imaging fiber, to carry photons end to end.
\n\u201dImaging fiber looks like a standard fiber, but inside it has thousands of cores,\u201d said Costa, a Microsoft partner research manager. He explained that the technology already existed in the cables used for medical endoscopy, which essentially sends a tiny camera into the human body. \u201cThat was the missing piece. We finally had a way to carry thousands of parallel channels in one cable.\u201d
\nInside datacenters, two types of cables are typically used to transmit data between servers: fiber optical cable carrying photons fired by lasers and, for closer, faster and more reliable connections, copper cable, transmitting data with electrons.
\nEach has its limitations. Copper can only connect as far as about two meters while transmitting high levels of data. Copper cabling is typically used in a single rack to connect graphics processing units, or GPUs, now in common use, especially in AI applications. The fiber optical cables can stretch much farther (like all the way across the floor of the Pacific Ocean, for example). But with distance and volume of data come issues with reliability and energy consumption.
\nThe new technology resolves these limitations to a large degree; MicroLEDs can cover tens of meters, are more reliable than fiber optical cables fed by lasers, which are vulnerable to temperature changes and even dust; and use much less energy.
\nToday\u2019s laser-based fiber optical cables deliver data in pulses of light over a few channels. As Costa describes it, this is the \u201cnarrow and fast\u201d approach to transmitting data.
\nThe MicroLED system, with thousands of independent channels, delivers photons in patterns that Costa compared to QR codes. This he describes as the \u201cwide and slow\u201d approach. It delivers as much data because of the width, like a broad slow-moving river versus a narrow fast-moving stream, both carrying the same volume of water.
\n\u201cThe early concept of using LEDs to send data more cheaply \u2014 and lower power \u2014 than both copper and fiber optics seemed like a fantasy,\u201d said Doug Burger, technical fellow and corporate vice president at Microsoft Research. \u201cThis breakthrough has the potential to change nearly every aspect of computing infrastructure \u2026 starting with high-bandwidth optical cables.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollow Core Fiber already in use<\/strong>
\nMicrosoft\u2019s Hollow Core Fiber (HCF) technology is designed to work with existing Single Mode Fiber (SMF) equipment, making installation easy and creating the flexibility to use it broadly. Photo courtesy of Microsoft.
\nThe MicroLED cabling is not the only networking innovation changing the way data is transmitted. Another development is called Hollow Core Fiber, or HCF, and it\u2019s already in use in some Microsoft Azure regions and is in the process of being deployed in more of them globally.
\nBoth technologies was showcased at the 2026 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC) last March, including research and advances in HCF and MicroLED technologies.
\nInstead of carrying photons in fiber, HCF, as the name suggests, carries signals in a hollow core, through air, which allows the light to move even faster, ultimately decreasing the latency over the same distance or spanning a longer distance at the same latency. That means a datacenter could be placed farther away without losing the speed and reactivity that a consumer is used to. The innovation was chosen as one of the top inventions of the year in 2025 in Time magazine.
\nMicrosoft has agreed to manufacturing collaborations to help increase HCF production to equip more of its datacenters globally.
\nFrank Rey is Microsoft\u2019s general manager of Azure Hyperscale Networking. He said that while he sometimes describes his job as being a \u201cdigital plumber,\u201d his team is actually \u201cresponsible for all the rooms, boxes and wires that make up Microsoft\u2019s global network.\u201d
\nHCF and the new MicroLED system are complementary technologies, both of which help Microsoft reach its goals of delivering Azure cloud services in the fastest and most efficient way, according to Rey.
\nGenerally speaking, the MicroLED system will serve a role inside datacenters, connecting servers and GPUs, its designers say. HCF has the capacity to cover great distances, serving customers and connecting datacenters, Rey said, although it could also eventually play a role inside datacenters.
\nTwo of the big advantages of Hollow Core Fiber, Rey said, are that HCF delivers up to 47% faster data transmission and approximately 33% lower latency compared with conventional Single Mode Fiber (SMF), according to published research. HCF was developed at the University of Southampton and further developed in a spinoff company called Lumenisity, which Microsoft acquired in 2022.
\n\u201cWith MicroLED, you have the pure efficiency of LED over a laser,\u201d he said. \u201cThat has a pure bottom-line impact to power usage at any given datacenter. And then Hollow Core allows us to extend that area served by one datacenter and an Azure region. And outside of an Azure region, if you can go a much greater distance before you need to do any signal amplification, that means less buildings, less power, less generators, less energy.\u201d
\nRey said that both HCF and the MicroLED system are designed so they can be installed quickly and without difficulty in Microsoft and other datacenters.<\/p>\n

Investigating what\u2019s possible<\/strong>
\nIn the Cambridge lab, a working prototype of the MicroLED system covers much of a worktable with a tangle of glowing cables draped over metal framing that supports lenses, image sensors and MicroLED lights. To tackle a problem of this complexity, Microsoft deployed a team of experts that includes a computer scientist, a digital logic expert, optical engineering designers, electronic integrated photonics and packaging experts, a mechanical engineer and optical communications and signal processing experts.
\nCosta began his work at Microsoft Research with a project on optical switches, but the researchers soon realized they also needed an efficient link technology to fully unlock their benefits.
\n\u201cJust before the pandemic started, we started looking into how could we make the links more efficient, and this is when we turned toward developing the MicroLED approach,\u201d he said.
\nSince then, Costa and his team developed the system one can see on the workbench in the lab, and in collaboration with MediaTek and other suppliers, they have more recently miniaturized all of it to fit into a metal transceiver, which plugs into a server and is roughly the size of a big thumb.
\nThat transceiver contains a miniature version of everything on that cluttered lab bench. Tiny lenses guide the light onto photodiodes that turn it into electrical signals carrying usable data.
\nOnce the data reaches a server, that data becomes our emails, blog posts, photos of cats, streaming movies and AI chats. An engineering miracle that is invisible because it works.<\/p>\n

Above, from left, Kaoutar Benyahya, Kai Shi and Paolo Costa \u2013 Microsoft researchers on the team that developed the new MicroLED cabling system \u2013 with one of the prototypes they used to develop the technology. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before appearing on a screen in your hand or on your desk, this story and its photos existed as pulses of light, fired by lasers, that passed through strands of glass as fine as a human hair   Written by Chris Welsch, Microsoft It\u2019s an invisible miracle of engineering. Because data and services are delivered … <\/p>\n

Continue reading \u00abUsing inexpensive MicroLEDs, Microsoft networking innovation aims to make datacenters more efficient\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24655"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24660,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24655\/revisions\/24660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}