Keysight Debuts AresONE 1600GE — A Purpose-Built 1.6T Ethernet AI Workload Emulation Platform to Validate Next-Generation AI Fabrics at Unprecedented Speed and Scale
As the AI interconnect market races toward $200 billion by 2030 and the industry undergoes what analysts are calling the largest and fastest transition cycle ever to 800GE and 1600GE, Keysight's AresONE 1600GE gives hyperscalers, silicon manufacturers, and AI data centre operators a single platform to validate AI fabrics under real-world conditions — before and after deployment.
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Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS) has announced AresONE 1600GE, a scalable 1.6T Ethernet AI workload emulation platform designed to validate next-generation AI fabrics operating over emerging 224G SerDes electrical lanes. The rack-mount platform enables network equipment manufacturers, silicon chip developers, hyperscalers, and AI data centre operators to emulate large-scale AI compute nodes and validate AI fabrics both before and after deployment — addressing a validation gap that has grown increasingly acute as AI workloads push data centre networking to speeds and complexity the industry has never previously encountered.
The Industry Challenge: Validating AI Fabrics at 1.6T
AI workloads are driving rapid growth in both scale-up and scale-out networking, pushing the industry to transition to higher data rates and increased AI switch radix — the number of ports on a switch — through fan-out of 800GE and 1600GE ports. This improves AI fabric efficiency and reduces network tiers, but it also introduces a new class of validation challenges that existing tools were not built to address.
Validating new designs at these speeds requires simultaneously managing link integrity over 224G lanes, accurately modelling congestion behaviour under microbursts, and realistically emulating the AI collective communications patterns that GPU clusters generate during training and inference. No single existing platform unified all three requirements — until now.
"The market is rapidly shifting from foundational training to inference and agentic models. The AI interconnect market — scale-up, scale-out, scale-across, and front-end — will approach $200 billion by 2030, led by record growth in 800G and 1.6T Ethernet. The move to 1.6T will be the largest and fastest cycle ever in the industry."
— Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group
AresONE 1600GE: One Platform, Full-Stack Validation
The AresONE 1600GE combines a high-density 1.6T hardware architecture with Keysight AI Data Center Builder (KAI DC Builder) software, delivering the realistic AI workload emulation required to validate next-generation AI fabrics. With KAI DC Builder, the platform emulates real-world AI workloads — including multiple full-stack RoCEv2 connections and a broad range of collective communication patterns — allowing teams to assess key fabric KPIs under conditions that closely mirror production environments. Integrated data collection and analytics improve visibility, helping engineers fine-tune fabric performance with precision.
The platform also integrates with Keysight IxNetwork, which emulates high-scale Layer 2/3 protocols and traffic at lane speed, giving engineers greater visibility to identify issues earlier in the development cycle and accelerate product readiness.
Five Core Capabilities
AI Data Centre and Network Validation at Scale
Enables AI fabric deployment assessment using real AI workloads and GPU cluster emulation at high speeds. Tests GPUs, AI NICs, and accelerators pre- and post-deployment, measures network impact on job completion time, and evaluates performance isolation, load balancing, and congestion control to optimise AI training performance.
High-Density OSFP 1600 Hardware Architecture
The rack-mount platform delivers four OSFP 1600 ports supporting flexible fan-out configurations — 1 × 1600GE, 2 × 800GE, 4 × 400GE, or 8 × 200GE — over 224G SerDes electrical lanes, enabling both link bring-up and large-scale traffic validation within a single scalable system.
Full-Stack Validation from Physical Layer Through AI-Driven Control Plane
Supports optical and electrical link validation, forward error correction (FEC) and physical coding behaviour, and full Layer 2/3 protocol and traffic analysis — all within one platform. This correlates signal integrity, protocol behaviour, and application performance in a single unified view, eliminating the need to stitch results from separate test tools.
Scalable Data Centre-Ready System Design
High-performance processing and memory enable automated, repeatable testing with seamless lab and data centre integration, and reliable day-to-day operation across both development and production validation cycles.
IxNetwork Integration
Emulates high-scale Layer 2/3 protocols and traffic at lane speed, providing engineers with the visibility needed to identify issues earlier and accelerate product readiness across the full development lifecycle.
"As AI workloads continue to scale, data centers are pushing speeds and complexity the industry has never seen before. With AresONE 1600GE, Keysight provides hyperscalers and other AI innovators a practical, proven way to validate next-generation network devices and infrastructure under real-world conditions, enabling faster deployment with greater confidence and significantly less risk."
— Ram Periakaruppan, Vice President and General Manager, Network Test and Security Solutions, Keysight
Live Demonstrations at OFC 2026
Keysight will demonstrate the AresONE 1600GE and KAI Data Center Builder, alongside additional test solutions, at the OFC Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center — South Hall, Booth #1300, March 17–19, 2026. Engineers and infrastructure teams can schedule one-on-one meetings with Keysight experts on-site to discuss architecture and validation goals. The product page and data sheet for the AresONE 1600GE are available at keysight.com.
Key Takeaways
- Keysight Technologies (NYSE: KEYS) has launched AresONE 1600GE — a purpose-built, rack-mount 1.6T Ethernet AI workload emulation platform that unifies physical layer validation, AI workload emulation, and traffic and protocol testing into a single system for validating next-generation AI fabrics over 224G SerDes lanes
- The platform combines the AresONE 1600GE hardware — delivering four OSFP 1600 ports with flexible fan-out at 1600GE, 800GE, 400GE, or 200GE — with KAI Data Center Builder software, which emulates real-world AI workloads including full-stack RoCEv2 connections and collective communication patterns used by GPU clusters
- Industry analyst Alan Weckel (650 Group) positions this launch at the inflection point of the industry's largest and fastest transition cycle: the AI interconnect market is forecast to approach $200 billion by 2030, led by record growth in 800G and 1.6T Ethernet as AI shifts from training to inference and agentic models
- Full-stack validation capabilities span from physical layer (optical/electrical link integrity, FEC) through Layer 2/3 protocol and traffic analysis, with IxNetwork integration for high-scale protocol emulation at lane speed — correlating signal integrity, protocol behaviour, and application performance in one unified platform
- AresONE 1600GE and KAI Data Center Builder will be demonstrated live at OFC 2026, South Hall Booth #1300, Los Angeles Convention Center, March 17–19, 2026