Network speed and system performance are a hot topic in the tech, but there hasn't been much innovation in the networking. Now, it seems like DARPA is looking to change that with the FastNIC program.
In fact, in a post , DARPA announced that it is going to create a new network interface that will be 100 times faster than the usual one.
According to the organization, the network interface used to connect a system to a network, such as Ethernet, is what creates the “real delay in processor.”
DARPA is essentially referring to the network interface card (NIC), which helps connect multiple computers to a local area network. In a computer, a NIC is a hardware that acts as an intermediary between a computer and a network. It receives data from the network and transmits it to the computers.
As DARPA notes, the main problem with the NICs used today is the slow speed of information exchange between computing units. Given how fast a supercomputer can be, the network interface actually limits its maximum performance .
“Today, state-of-the-art network throughput is about 1014 bits per second (bps), and data is processed at a total of about 1014 bps. Current interfaces only provide 1010 to 1011 bps of application,” said Dr. Jonathan Smith, program manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office.
With FastNIC, DARPA plans to overhaul the entire network interface. The plan is to provide 10 Tbps of network speed, thereby accelerating performance by 100x.
There is currently no timeline for when the new NIC will be released. However, the good news is that the software libraries created by FastNIC will be open source. So if the DARPA FastNIC eventually sees the light of day, it has the potential to become the new standard.
