Real World Deployments for AI at the Edge with Xsight Labs

This final technical section transitions from theoretical architecture to practical use cases, spanning Warm Flash Storage to “Extreme Edge” networking satellites. It showcases industry-first milestones, such as the 800G DPU for virtualized hosting and SmartSwitch technology for NIC pooling. Each example demonstrates how the X and E series products solve specific bottlenecks in modern cloud compute and AI storage networks. Xsight Labs, a nine-year-old fabless semiconductor company, focuses on real-world deployments for AI at the edge using its X series Ethernet switch and E series DPU. Their core philosophy centers on being software-defined, appealing to software engineers by offering performance comparable to fixed-function products while providing greater flexibility through an open instruction set architecture and Linux-based programming with tools such as DPTK or Open Virtual Switch. They target the edge market, believing it holds the highest volume, and have designed their single-die products for extreme power efficiency and high performance.

The company’s chips are deployed in diverse settings, from the “extreme edge” to terrestrial wireless infrastructure. A significant win is their integration into Starlink Gen 3 satellites, where multiple Ethernet switches per satellite are being launched at scale. This required Xsight Labs to deliver unparalleled programmability, power efficiency, and resilience against vibration, radiation, and extreme temperatures, crucial for a system that cannot be physically serviced. Similarly, their programmable Ethernet switches and DPUs are ideal for 5.5G or 6G terrestrial wireless infrastructure, addressing the complex, stateful packet-processing needs of antennas and associated processing units. These low-power, single-die solutions offer advantages in temperature range, cost, and operating expenses, including reduced carbon footprint.

Xsight Labs is also targeting the expanding AI market, particularly for inference, which is pushing computing out into half-rack, full-rack, and multi-row deployments. Their DPUs serve as front-end and scale-out back-end solutions for these systems, enabling very high-density general compute. Additionally, their Ethernet switches are used to cluster these AI systems, marking a departure from traditional “clos” architectures by supporting local clustering topologies such as Dragonfly. For example, in AI training systems similar to Amazon’s ultra-servers, Xsight Labs’ products with 100G serdes and 6.4T/12.8T switches can replicate or enhance existing topologies. The Starlink win underscores their capability to provide future-proof, high-performance, and power-efficient solutions essential for the most demanding and inaccessible environments.