The “Meet the PCI-SIG® Members” blog series is a way to highlight our diverse global members that make PCI-SIG what it is today. PCI-SIG members help to advance and promote PCI Express® (PCIe®) technology innovation in the industry, while receiving a variety of benefits. If you are interested in joining PCI-SIG, learn more about becoming a member on our website.

In this edition, Jacqueline Arsivaud, VP Marketing, GigaIO, discusses why GigaIO joined PCI-SIG, the benefits of membership, and how they contribute to the development and expansion of PCIe technology.

1. Can you provide a brief overview of your company?

GigaIO provides workload-defined infrastructure through its universal dynamic memory fabric, based on PCIe technology, which seamlessly composes rack-scale resources and integrates natively into industry-standard tools. Our servers are fully engineered for AI and accelerated computing. These solutions allow users to deploy systems in hours instead of months and run more workloads at lower cost through higher utilization of resources and more agile deployment.

2. Why did your company join PCI-SIG?

GigaIO joined PCI-SIG because we believe in open industry standards as key to a robust and interoperable ecosystem. PCI-SIG represents one of the most important standards in the industry, and the PCIe standard is vital to many of our products. In our case we utilize PCIe to disaggregate and re-aggregate data center rack resources to build a 32-GPU server, which is made possible by extending PCIe outside the server box.

Our goal is to foster an open ecosystem where a variety of vendor-agnostic endpoints can be supported, to enable customers to break vendor lock-in and choose the endpoints most suited to their needs and budgets. We believe that PCIe technology will be vital in high-performance and artificial intelligence applications, and belonging to PCI-SIG gives us a voice in contributing and influencing the standard to meet the needs of our customers.

3. What is the biggest advantage of PCI-SIG membership?

PCI-SIG membership allows GigaIO to collaborate with other industry leaders to influence the specifications to solve future connectivity challenges. We see PCIe technology as the key interconnect to meet the growing needs of emerging technologies such as Generative AI, and as such, further standards developments are very important to us. 

4. How does your company participate (or plan to participate) in PCI-SIG?

Being part of the PCI-SIG is fairly new to us; besides using the specifications to ensure our products are standards-compliant, we plan to be active in the technical committees and the Marketing Working Group.

5. What expertise does your company bring to PCI-SIG?

We bring decades of high-performance, high-speed interconnect expertise using PCIe technology, both inside the server, and between servers.

6. What does your company see as PCI-SIG’s impact within the industry?

We see PCI-SIG as vital to maintaining and driving forward PCIe technology. By facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing among industry leaders, PCI-SIG creates an environment that breaks down barriers and fosters collective innovation. Open standards and an open ecosystem are vital to the health and further progress of the industry, and to delivering interoperable solutions to customers.

7. Which market segments benefit the most from PCIe technology?

PCIe technology is a cornerstone of modern AI systems. It provides the high-speed backbone for connecting powerful GPUs, AI accelerators, SmartNICs and CPUs in heterogeneous computing environments. This connectivity is crucial for enabling rapid data transfer and efficient processing, which are essential for training complex AI models and delivering real-time AI applications. 

Key benefits of PCIe architecture include high bandwidth to facilitate fast data movement between components, low latency to minimize delays in data transmission, and scalability, which supports a wide range of system configurations.

These characteristics make PCIe technology an ideal choice for AI workloads that demand high performance and flexibility.

8. Which future applications of PCIe technology is your company most looking forward to?

As the application space for heterogeneous computing, including AI/ML and Large Language Models (LLMs) expands further, we see the need for disaggregated architectures that will drive demand for solutions including higher bandwidths and extended PCIe signal reach.

We also see PCIe architecture poised to play a pivotal role in edge computing and remote locations. Its combination of low latency, high data transfer rates, low power consumption and built-in interoperability makes it an ideal choice for these environments. The ability to easily connect a variety of devices, including video cards, accelerators and storage, further enhances PCIe technology’s appeal for edge applications.

Interested in participating in a future “Meet the PCI-SIG Members” blog? Reach out to pr@pcisig.com for additional details. If you are interested in joining PCI-SIG, learn more about becoming a member on our website.