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Disassembling NVIDIA's 1.6T Network Module

Inside NVIDIA’s 1.6Tbps Cedar Module: A deep dive into DGX H100’s custom 400Gbps networking & cooling design for AI-scale bandwidth.

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Meng Li
Jul 23, 2025
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NVIDIA's upgrade from the A100 to the H100 series marked a significant shift to PCIe Gen5. PCIe Gen5 provides sufficient bandwidth to transition from a 200Gbps network to a 400Gbps network.

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The NVIDIA DGX H100 adopts a different networking approach, specifically abandoning traditional PCIe cards in favor of a module called "Cedar."

Each Cedar module is equipped with four ConnectX-7 controllers, each providing 400Gbps of network bandwidth.

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The DGX H100 also includes two ConnectX-7 controllers to connect two Cedar modules, each with four ConnectX-7 controllers, each at 400Gbps, resulting in a structural bandwidth of 3.2Tbps.

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