Linux 6.2 Begins Making Preparations For 800 Gbps Networking

The Linux kernel's networking subsystem is beginning to make preparations for 800 Gbps Ethernet networking.

The IEEE-802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee has published standards for 800 Gbps networking and NVIDIA with continuing to build from their acquired Mellanox IP is working on 800 Gbps networking hardware. NVIDIA engineers working on their Linux driver support have confirmed that their next-generation NVIDIA Spectrum ASIC will indeed support 800 Gbps speeds.

Initially NVIDIA is going to support 800 Gbps speeds using eight lanes at 100 Gbps each while further out they are looking at four lanes at 200 Gbps.

With this pull into net-next, NVIDIA has started staging changes for 800 Gbps networking support for ethtool and their Mellanox "mlxsw" networking driver. Just some of the basic 800 Gbps related additions so far but it's on the way and with this week being picked up by net-next makes it material set for being merged in Linux 6.2.

While 800 Gbps is already double the bandwidth of current top-end 400 Gigabit Ethernet networking gear, the Ethernet Alliance's roadmap this year has put 1.6 Tbit/s networking as expected within the next few years.