ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 tri-band WiFi 7 gaming router at Computex 2024. This next-generation powerhouse is designed to dominate gaming and computing experiences with ultra-fast tri-band WiFi 7 speeds of up to 19 Gbps, innovative features like Automatic Frequency Coordination, and comprehensive wired and wireless network functions.

Next-gen WiFi power
The ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 router boasts ultra-fast wireless speeds of up to 19 Gbps, thanks to innovative WiFi 7 features like 320 MHz channels, 4096-QAM, and Multi-Link Operation. It is the world's first gaming router with Automatic Frequency Coordination. AFC automatically checks the WiFi environment and chooses the least congested channel in the 6 GHz band, boosting peak transmit power by up to 63 times higher than Low Power Indoor networking devices. The GT-BE19000 also provides up to 31 Gbps of wired capacity, including dual 10 Gb Ethernet and quad 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports, ensuring strong, stable connections for building a robust local network in the new era of AI.

Zyxel Networks, a leader in delivering secure, AI-powered cloud networking solutions, has announced the launch of its USG LITE 60AX - an AX6000 WiFi 6 security router - an all-in-one unified security gateway appliance designed for small to medium businesses (SMBs), teleworkers and managed service providers (MSPs).

Providing uncompromising, subscription-free protection against online threats, fast WiFi connectivity and effortless cloud management, the USG LITE 60AX also sets an industry-leading standard for eco-friendliness, with a casing that is 95%-made from post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic. This delivers an 81% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to ABS plastic. Zyxel Networks has also used 100% halogen-free, soy-based inks in all packaging and with a 40% reduction in the volume of packaging used, shipment is made easier, meaning less waste and supporting businesses in achieving their sustainability goals.

AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Intel, Meta and Microsoft today announced they have aligned to develop a new industry standard dedicated to advancing high-speed and low latency communication for scale-up AI systems linking in Data Centers.

Called the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), this initial group will define and establish an open industry standard that will enable AI accelerators to communicate more effectively. By creating an interconnect based upon open standards, UALink will enable system OEMs, IT professionals and system integrators to create a pathway for easier integration, greater flexibility and scalability of their AI-connected data centers.

Zyxel Networks' firewall solutions have been awarded Champion status in the latest Professional User Ratings (PUR) survey covering security solutions from techconsult - the renowned independent German research and analysis organisation, and part of the Heise Group.

More than 3,500 security experts from user organisations took part in techconsult's Professional User Rating: Security Solutions 2024 survey. They were asked to rate products and services in a number of areas, with vendors subsequently ranked on the basis of their Solution/Technology Excellence and Company Excellence. Zyxel Networks was one of only eight vendors to achieve the top 'Champion' status, having received the highest overall Solution/Technology Excellence rating and the fourth-highest Company Excellence ranking.

SonicFi Inc., a brand new company aiming to provide solutions for SMB, today makes a debut of its Ronto cloud network product series in CommunicAsia 2024 in Singapore, making a proactive entry into the small and medium-sized enterprise market. Ronto SMB solutions include Controller, Indoor Wall Mount Access Point, Indoor Ceiling Mount Access Point, Managed Switch, and Outdoor Long Range Fixed Wireless Access Point. Combined with their in-house developed cloud platform and AI driven optimization features, these offerings provide an excellent and cost-effective network solution for small and medium-sized enterprises, factories, SI vendors, featuring cloud-based intelligent management.

Ronto products feature an in-house developed cloud platform, incorporating management functionalities essential for small and medium-sized enterprise networks. Through intuitive mobile applications, network deployment and management are streamlined, providing simple, intelligent, and secure networking solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.

On Friday, Sony announced that Helldivers 2, a 3rd person squad-based shooter from Arrowhead, will require a PlayStation Network (PSN) account for gamers to link, in addition to their Steam accounts. However, that caused quite a stir in the gaming community, especially in the form of negative reviews on Steam. Since the May 2 announcement of mandatory PSN account linking, the game received more than 200,000 negative reviews from gamers. Not only is the PSN account another layer of log-in details, but it also doesn't work in 177 countries, effectively preventing gamers from those 177 countries from purchasing and enjoying the game. Arrowhead Studios CEO and Helldivers 2 Creative Director Johan Pilestedt noted that over the weekend, there were talks with Sony about reversing the decision.

Today, we have the information that Sony has reviewed its course and that the update requiring a PSN account, planned for May 6, will not be moving forward. This means that the game is PSN-free, and gamers are able to enjoy it on their Steam accounts. It has also been reported on Reddit that some users received refunds from Steam, even when their purchase was over two months old, and they had played 120+ hours of the game. As per the GDPR, terms that are changed after the agreement is made require action from the seller. This has resulted in Steam stepping up for gamers and issuing a refund for Helldivers 2, as PSN account linking was optional upon release. Gamers have shown their collective power, and Sony has managed to reverse its decision so that no further harm is done.

Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced that the companies successfully completed 1024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) tests for both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) spectrum bands, marking an industry-first for FDD. This innovative milestone and collaboration demonstrate the companies' dedication to supporting operators increase 5G throughput and boost spectral efficiency of their networks.

QAM is an advanced modulation technology to transmit data or information more efficiently. This directly relates to how many bits of data can be delivered in each transmission. While 256 QAM is widely used in commercial networks, Samsung and Qualcomm Technologies recently accomplished the latest 1024 QAM defined in 3GPP Release 17 specifications. This enhanced QAM technology helps operators maximize their use of spectrum resources and allows mobile users to seamlessly enjoy various mobile services such as live video streaming and online multi-player gaming, which require higher download speeds.

ASUS today announced the RT-BE88U, the world's first WiFi 7 router that offers up to 34 Gbps of combined wired network capacity. With a 10 Gbps LAN / WAN port, a 10 Gbps LAN / WAN SFP+ port and four 2.5 Gbps ports, the RT-BE88U stands ready to deliver massive amounts of Ethernet performance for online gaming, media streaming and more - now and well into the future. It also offers up to 7200 Mbps of cutting-edge WiFi 7 networking, bringing the enhanced data rates of 4K-QAM and dual-band Multi-Link Operation to compatible devices. Plus, Guest Network Pro, subscription-free security features and site-to-site VPN support help to make an RT-BE88U-based network flexible, safe and easy to manage.

The WiFi 7 advantage
With WiFi 7 cornerstones such as the boosted data rates of 4K-QAM and dual-band Multi-Link Operation (MLO), the ASUS RT-BE88U ushers in a whole new wave of networking possibilities. 4K-QAM increases speeds by packing signals more tightly, which increases bandwidth efficiency. Thus, data rates can be up to 20% higher than what a WiFi 6 network can achieve. Meanwhile, Dual-band Multi-Link Operation (MLO) lets a WiFi 7 device connect to both a 2.4 GHz and a 5 GHz network to increase throughput and minimize latency. This future-proofs the network, giving users the capacity to handle even more connected devices without sacrificing performance

A Chinese Topton company has brought new life to the AMD Vega graphics architecture by integrating it into a Network Attached Storage (NAS) motherboard. The Topton N9 NAS motherboard features the Intel Core i7-8705G processor, a unique chip that combines Intel CPU cores with AMD's RX Vega M GL graphics. The Intel Core i7-8705G, initially released in 2018, is an unusual choice for a NAS system. This 14 nm processor features four cores, eight threads, and a boost clock of up to 4.1 GHz. What sets it apart is the integrated AMD RX Vega M GL GPU with 20 Compute Units and 4 GB of HBM2 memory.

The Topton N9 NAS motherboard is designed for the 17×17 cm ITX form factor and offers a range of features like maximum support for 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, M.2 NVMe/SATA and SATA 3.0, eight Intel i226-V controllers for 2.5 Gbit networking, USB 3.0, USB Type-C, and HDMI 2.0 connectivity. While the Intel Core i7-8705G may not be the most obvious choice for a NAS system, the Topton N9 motherboard demonstrates how this unique processor can be repurposed to provide affordable computing power. The integrated AMD RX Vega graphics offer capabilities beyond typical NAS requirements, making this motherboard suitable for various applications, such as home firewalls and routers. The collaboration between Intel and AMD in creating the Kaby Lake-G processors was a rare occurrence in the industry. The Topton N9 starts at $288.56 without a fan/cooler, and adding another $20 bumps the price to $308.46.

NVIDIA today announced its next-generation AI supercomputer—the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD powered by NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips—for processing trillion-parameter models with constant uptime for superscale generative AI training and inference workloads.

Featuring a new, highly efficient, liquid-cooled rack-scale architecture, the new DGX SuperPOD is built with NVIDIA DGX GB200 systems and provides 11.5 exaflops of AI supercomputing at FP4 precision and 240 terabytes of fast memory—scaling to more with additional racks.

As GDC, the world's largest game developer conference, returns to San Francisco, Microsoft and Xbox will be there to engage and empower developers, publishers, and technology partners across the industry. We are committed to supporting game developers on any platform, anywhere in the world, at every stage of development. Our message is simple: Microsoft and Xbox are here to help power your games and empower your teams. From March 18 - 22, the Xbox Lobby Lounge in the Moscone Center South can't be missed—an easy meeting point, and a first step toward learning more about the ID@Xbox publishing program, the Developer Acceleration Program (DAP) for underrepresented creators, Azure cloud gaming services, and anything else developers might need.

GDC features dozens of speakers from across Xbox, Activision, Blizzard, King and ZeniMax who will demonstrate groundbreaking in-game innovations and share community-building strategies. Microsoft technology teams, with support from partners, will also host talks that spotlight new tools, software and services that help increase developer velocity, grow player engagement and help creators grow. See below for the Conference programming details.

Samsung Electronics and Vodafone, in collaboration with AMD, today announced that the three companies have successfully demonstrated an end-to-end call with the latest AMD processors enabling Open RAN technology, a first for the industry. This joint achievement represents the companies' technical leadership in enriching the Open RAN ecosystem throughout the industry. Conducted in Samsung's R&D lab in Korea, the first call was completed using Samsung's versatile, O-RAN-compliant, virtualized RAN (vRAN) software, powered by AMD EPYC 8004 Series processors on Supermicro's Telco/Edge servers, supported by Wind River Studio Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform. This demonstration aimed to verify optimized performance, energy efficiency and interoperability among partners' solutions.

The joint demonstration represents Samsung and Vodafone's ongoing commitment to reinforce their position in the Open RAN market and expand their ecosystem with industry-leading partners. This broader and growing Open RAN ecosystem helps operators to build and modernize mobile networks with greater flexibility, faster time-to-market (TTM), and unmatched performance. "Open RAN represents the forthcoming major transformation in advancing mobile networks for the future. Reaching this milestone with top industry partners like Samsung and AMD shows Vodafone's dedication to delivering on the promise of Open RAN innovation," said Nadia Benabdallah, Network Strategy and Engineering Director at Vodafone Group. "Vodafone is continually looking to innovate its network by exploring the potential and diversity of the ecosystem."

At MWC Barcelona 2024, Intel will demonstrate breakthrough innovations across a full spectrum of new hardware, software and services—bringing AI Everywhere - for the network, edge and enterprise in collaboration with the support and enablement of more than 65 pioneering customers and partners. Announcements will span AI network innovations, edge AI platforms, Intel Core Ultra processors and the AI PC. They are about empowering our ecosystem; modernizing and monetizing 5G, edge and enterprise infrastructures; and taking advantage of AI-based innovations. And it's all with the purpose of improving performance and power consumption for a more sustainable future.

Join Intel at MWC Barcelona (Hall 3, Stand 3E31) Feb. 26-29. Visitors will see and hear from ecosystem customers and partners about how innovations and collaborations across network, edge and enterprise create modern networks and opportunities for 5G monetization at the edge and bring AI across organizations making an impact across industries.

Various news outlets have been keeping tabs on OpenAI's CEO—Sam Altman—the AI technology evangelist was reported to be pursuing an ambitious proprietary AI chip project in early 2024. Inside sources pointed to late-January negotiations with important investment personnel in the Middle East—many believe that OpenAI leadership is exploring the idea of establishing its own network of semiconductor production plants. Late last week, The Wall Street Journal followed up on last month's AI industry rumors: "(Altman) has another great ambition: raising trillions of dollars to reshape the global semiconductor industry. The OpenAI chief executive officer is in talks with investors including the United Arab Emirates government to raise funds for a wildly ambitious tech initiative that would boost the world's chip-building capacity, expand its ability to power AI." One anonymous insider reckons that "the project could require raising as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion."

TSMC is reportedly in the equation—Altman allegedly conducted talks with top brass last month—their expertise in cutting edge fabrication techniques would be of great value, although it is somewhat futile to reveal too many industry secrets given the sheer scale of OpenAI's (reported) aggressive expansion plans. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests that the embryonic venture is far more "open" than previously reported—a collaborative venture could be established once funding is secured, although Altman & Co. face "significant obstacles" en route. WSJ proposes that the somewhat OpenAI-centric fabrication network is best founded by a joint partnership—involving multiple investors, contract chip manufacturers (perhaps TSMC), and energy/power providers. OpenAI appears to be the "primary buyer" of resultant fabricated AI chips, with manufacturing services also offered to other clients. The scale of such an endeavor is put into perspective by WSJ's analysis (via inside sources): "Such a sum of investment would dwarf the current size of the global semiconductor industry. Global sales of chips were $527 billion last year and are expected to rise to $1 trillion annually by 2030. Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment—the costly machinery needed to run chip factories—last year were $100 billion, according to an estimate by the industry group SEMI."

AEWIN is glad to announce our latest High-Performance Network Appliance powered by Intel latest 5th Gen Xeon Scalable Processors, SCB-1942 Series. It is a series of flagship products powered by dual Intel Emerald Rapids CPUs, having up to 128 CPU cores (64 cores per CPU) for the extreme computing power pursued in the market. SCB-1942 series has multiple SKU with various PCIe slots options for great expandability to fulfill customer's solutions.

The SCB-1942A is a 2U, 2-socket network computing platform having 16x memory socket of DDR5 up to 5600 MHz, and 8x PCIe 5.0 expansion slots for AEWIN wide coverage NIC cards with 1G/10/25/40/100G copper/fiber interfaces or other Accelerators & NVMe SSDs for flexible functionality enhancement. The SCB-1942A provides the flexibility to change the 2x PCIe slots to 1x PCIe x16 slot for standard PCIe form factor which can install off-the-shelf add-on card for additional function required. It can support 400G NIC card installed such as Mellanox PCIe 5.0 NIC. In addition, the SCB-1942 series support 10 SATA which make it also suitable for various kinds of storage applications.

ASUS today displayed the ZenWiFi BQ16 and ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro mesh routers at CES 2024, featuring next-gen quad-band WiFi 7 speeds of up to 30 Gbps and coverage of up to 8000 sq. ft. (2pk) for future-ready smart homes. Dual 10 Gbps ports empower wired gaming as well as ultimate work-from-home productivity and 4K HDR entertainment streaming. ASUS ZenWiFi mesh routers won the coveted PC Magazine 2023 Readers' Choice Award. The authoritative publication reported that "ASUS takes a clear lead in this category," with the highest scores "for both overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend." PCMag also stated, "ASUS scores exceptionally high for mesh coverage, WiFi speed and network management."

ASUS also announces the availability of its ROG Rapture GT-BE98 and GT-BE98 Pro WiFi 7 gaming routers. Each router is equipped with powerful quad-band AiMesh, cutting-edge technology and innovative design, ensuring that users can enjoy ultimate performance.

Today marks the launch of not just two new incredibly well-designed NAS devices, but also two new features brand new to the ASUSTOR line of NAS devices with ARM processors. The introduction of the Drivestor 2 Pro Gen2 and Drivestor 4 Pro Gen2 come with an upgraded SoC, providing 21% more performance, which increases read and write speeds and performance for the features and apps available for the Drivestor Pro Gen2. The Drivestor Pro Gen2 series comes with 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, hot-swappable hard drive bays, hardware transcoding, tool-free design and more! The upgraded iGPU found in the Drivestor Pro Gen2 now gives even better performance when transcoding multimedia.

The all-new Drivestor Pro Gen2 series comes with a new killer feature. Btrfs is now supported on the Drivestor Pro Gen2, a first for ASUSTOR NAS devices running ARM CPUs. Btrfs helps protect data by enabling snapshots of data at certain points in time and is able to rewind the clock should any unintentional modifications be made and restore data if needed.

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of networking products that power businesses both large and small, today launched the cloud-managed NETGEAR S3600 Series Smart Switches, joining the company's cutting-edge portfolio of switches designed to meet the growing demands for faster networking that today's businesses require. The S3600 Series includes the 8-Port 10G/Multi-Gigabit (XS508TM) and 16-Port 10G/Multi-Gigabit (XS516TM) that provide flexible and auto-adaptive wired connectivity of high-bandwidth devices.

The growing networking demands of high-bandwidth applications and devices in the workplace often result in connectivity drops, slow speeds, bottlenecks, lagging content streaming and slow downloads. The S3600 Series of Smart Switches addresses these issues head-on and enables business owners to simply connect devices and instantly give each device exactly the speed it needs - either 1G, 2.5G, 5G, or 10G.

Zyxel Networks, a leader in delivering secure, AI- and cloud-powered business and home networking solutions, today announced the availability of WBE660S WiFi 7 BE22000 Triple-Radio NebulaFlex Pro Access Point, its first WiFi 7 access point for managed service providers (MSPs) and small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The enterprise-grade WBE660S features a triple radio BE22000 architecture and utilizes a wider 320 MHz channel to deliver speeds up to five times faster than WiFi 6/6E solutions. WBE660S enhances the user experience by providing seamless, latency-free connectivity to optimize high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming, broadcasting, online gaming, and VR/AR.

Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic this year, and everything is now an AI processor, from CPUs to GPUs, NPUs, and many others. However, it was only a matter of time before we saw an integration of AI processing elements into the networking chips. Today, Broadcom announced its new Ethernet switching silicon called Trident 5-X12. The Trident 5-X12 delivers 16 Tb/s of bandwidth, double that of the previous Trident generation while adding support for fast 800G ports for connection to Tomahawk 5 spine switch chips. The 5-X12 is software-upgradable and optimized for dense 1RU top-of-rack designs, enabling configurations with up to 48x200G downstream server ports and 8x800G upstream fabric ports. The 800G support is added using 100G-PAM4 SerDes, which enables up to 4 m DAC and linear optics.

However, this is not only a switch chip on its own. Broadcom has added AI processing elements in an inference engine called NetGNT (Networking General-purpose Neural-network Traffic-analyzer). It can detect common traffic patterns and optimize data movement across the chip. Specifically, the company has listed an example of the system doing AI/ML workloads. In that case, NetGNT performs intelligent traffic analysis to avoid network congestion in these workloads. For example, it can detect the so-called "incast" patterns in real-time, where many flows converge simultaneously on the same port. By recognizing the start of incast early, NetGNT can invoke hardware-based congestion control techniques to prevent performance degradation without added latency.

NVIDIA today announced that Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo will be the first to integrate NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking technologies for AI into their server lineups to help enterprise customers speed up generative AI workloads. Purpose-built for generative AI, Spectrum-X offers enterprises a new class of Ethernet networking that can achieve 1.6x higher networking performance for AI communication versus traditional Ethernet offerings. The new systems coming from three of the top system makers bring together Spectrum-X with NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs, NVIDIA AI Enterprise software and NVIDIA AI Workbench software to provide enterprises the building blocks to transform their businesses with generative AI.

"Generative AI and accelerated computing are driving a generational transition as enterprises upgrade their data centers to serve these workloads," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Accelerated networking is the catalyst for a new wave of systems from NVIDIA's leading server manufacturer partners to speed the shift to the era of generative AI."

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of networking products that power businesses both large and small, today launched the NETGEAR MS108TUP 8-Port Multi-Gigabit (2.5G) Ethernet Ultra60 PoE++Smart Switch, purpose-built for growing businesses that need all-in-one, reliable, seamless connectivity.

The growing number of connected devices, use of data-and-power-hungry applications and increasing prevalence of "bring your own device" make it increasingly important for small and mid-sized businesses to have a modern networking solution to drive better performance. NETGEAR's cutting-edge line of Smart Switches is now joined by a new model that provides an option to business owners with smaller port count needs without sacrificing quality.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, today launched the new QXG-10G2SF-X710 10GbE network expansion card. Equipped with the advanced Intel Ethernet Controller X710-BM2, this PCIe Gen 3 card (compatible with PCIe Gen 2) can be installed into a QNAP NAS or Windows /Linux PC, instantly augmenting connectivity with two high-speed 10GbE ports.

Featuring a low-noise fanless design, the QXG-10G2SF-X710 comes with two 10GbE SFP+ (10G/1G) network ports. Users can utilize SMB Multichannel or Port Trunking to combine bandwidth, providing up to 20 Gbps of data transfer potential, thereby accelerating large file sharing and intensive data transmission. The QXG-10G2SF-X710 also supports SR-IOV that enhances network resource allocation for VMware virtualization applications, reducing network bandwidth consumption and significantly lowering CPU usage for virtual machine servers (hypervisors).

Comcast and Broadcom today announced joint efforts to develop the world's first AI-powered access network with a new chipset that embeds artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) within the nodes, amps and modems that comprise the last few miles of Comcast's network. With these new capabilities broadly deployed throughout the network, Comcast will be able to transform its operations by automating more network functions and deliver an improved customer experience through better and more actionable intelligence.

Additionally, the new chipset will be the first in the world to incorporate DOCSIS 4.0 Full Duplex (FDX), Extended Spectrum (ESD) and the ability to run both simultaneously, enabling Internet service providers across the globe to deliver DOCSIS 4.0 services using a toolkit with technology options to meet their business needs. DOCSIS 4.0 is the next-generation network technology that will introduce symmetrical multi-gigabit Internet speeds, lower latency, and even better security and reliability to hundreds of millions of people and businesses over their existing connections without the need for major construction of new network infrastructure.

MaxLinear, Inc., a leader in broadband access solutions, today announced the availability of its DOCSIS 4.0 SoC cable modem and gateway platform, Puma 8. Puma 8 builds on the success of its DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 predecessors (Puma 6 and 7) and includes all critical elements of a DOCSIS platform, including a low-power, ultra-high split upstream PGA. The platform is compliant to the DOCSIS 4.0 frequency division duplex (FDD) specification and enables immediate large-scale deployments as a DOCSIS 3.1 device with gradual feature expansion options without the need for costly CPE replacements. Complete modem, Embedded Multimedia Terminal Adapter (EMTA), and gateway platforms will be available from MaxLinear's early access OEM partners in 2024.

MaxLinear's DOCSIS 4.0 platform stands out in the market as an energy-efficient, performance-optimized solution. It aligns perfectly with the deployment strategies and technology requirements of leading MSOs. The Puma 8 platform has been specifically tailored to support Extended Spectrum DOCSIS (ESD)/Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), and it boasts a range of energy-saving features. Even at full utilization, its power consumption is impressively low, at just 20-25 W, which is almost half that of competing solutions. This low power consumption enables a fan-less design, resulting in not only cost savings but also space conservation. To achieve peak performance with industry-leading low power consumption, MaxLinear employed a collaborative co-design approach, encompassing the DOCSIS SoC, AnyWAN SoC, and the programmable gain amplifier (PGA).