SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Broadcom's ( AVGO ) silicon

division launched its next-generation Jericho networking chip on

Monday, which is designed to connect data centers over 60 miles

(96.5 km) apart and speed artificial intelligence computation.

The company's Jericho4 introduces and improves several

features that increase the amount of networking traffic speeding

across large networks that operate inside and between data

centers.

Building and deploying artificial intelligence has become

more computationally intensive and requires stringing together

thousands of graphics processors (GPUs). Cloud computing

companies such as Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) require

faster, more sophisticated networking chips to ensure data moves

efficiently.

Security when transferring data beyond the physical walls of

a data center is crucial for cloud companies because of the

potential attacks that could intercept it ahead of reaching its

destination.

Broadcom's ( AVGO ) engineers designed the Jericho chips to be

deployed at a massive scale, and a single system can encompass

roughly 4,500 chips, according to Ram Velaga, senior vice

president and general manager of Broadcom's ( AVGO ) Core Switching

Group.

To help mitigate issues around network congestion, the

Jericho4 chips use the same high-bandwidth memory (HBM)

designers such as Nvidia ( NVDA ) and AMD use for their

AI processors. It's necessary because of the volume of data that

needs to be stuffed into memory at any given moment of

operation.

"The switch is actually holding that traffic (in memory)

till the congestion frees up," Velaga said. "It means you need

to have a lot of memory on the chip."

The longer the distance the data must travel from the chip

to its destination, the more memory designers must include in

the chip as well.

In addition to performance improvements, the Jericho4 also

beefs up security by encrypting data.

Broadcom ( AVGO ) opted to use TSMC's three nanometer

process for the Jericho4.