Core Viewpoint - The article discusses the competition between InfiniBand and Ethernet in AI networking, highlighting the advantages of Ethernet in terms of cost, scalability, and compatibility with existing infrastructure [6][8][22]. Group 1: AI Networking Overview - AI networks are primarily based on InfiniBand due to NVIDIA's dominance in the AI server market, but Ethernet is gaining traction due to its cost-effectiveness and established deployment in large-scale data centers [8][20]. - The establishment of the "Ultra Ethernet Consortium" (UEC) aims to enhance Ethernet's capabilities for high-performance computing and AI, directly competing with InfiniBand [8][9]. Group 2: Deployment Considerations - Teams face four key questions when deploying AI networks: whether to use existing TCP/IP networks or build dedicated high-performance networks, whether to choose InfiniBand or Ethernet-based RoCE, how to manage and maintain the network, and whether it can support multi-tenant isolation [9][10]. - The increasing size of AI models, often reaching hundreds of billions of parameters, necessitates distributed training, which relies heavily on network performance for communication efficiency [10][20]. Group 3: Technical Comparison - InfiniBand offers advantages in bandwidth and latency, with capabilities such as high-speed data transfer and low end-to-end communication delays, making it suitable for high-performance computing [20][21]. - Ethernet, particularly RoCE v2, provides flexibility and cost advantages, allowing for the integration of traditional Ethernet services while supporting high-performance RDMA [18][22]. Group 4: Future Trends - In AI inference scenarios, Ethernet is expected to demonstrate greater applicability and advantages due to its compatibility with existing infrastructure and cost-effectiveness, leading to more high-performance clusters being deployed on Ethernet [22][23].