Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
As AI workloads continue to scale, the physical infrastructure supporting them must evolve to deliver the performance, reliability, and efficiency required by modern data-intensive applications. This webinar will focus on the interconnect foundations of AI infrastructure, including storage. There will be an emphasis on the form factors, connectors, cables, and transceivers standards that enable scalable and interoperable systems.
We’ll explore how SNIA’s SFF Technical Work Group is contributing to the development of physical layer standards that support high-performance interconnects and storage devices used in AI environments. Topics will include the importance of transceiver innovation and the need to evolve; the role that form factors like EDSFF play; and how innovative cabling and connector designs support the adoption of high-speed signaling technologies like PCIe 8.0 and beyond.
This session is ideal for architects, engineers, and technologists who want to understand how physical infrastructure standards are enabling the next generation of AI systems.
Read the webinar Q&A blog: "Q&A: 400G and PCIe 8.0 in Next-Gen Interconnects" snia.org/blog/2026/qa-400g-and-pcie-80-next-gen-interconnects
Key Concepts:
• Transceiver development for out-of-box signaling
• Connectors and cables for high-speed inbox signaling
• Copper vs. optical and the challenges of both
• SSD form factor innovations and their impact on density and thermal design
Presented by Anthony Constantine, Micron Technology; Tom Palkert, Samtec; Erik Smith, Dell Technologies
Learn More:
Read the Q&A blog: snia.org/blog/2026/qa-400g-and-pcie-80-next-gen-interconnects
Listen to the Podcast: youtu.be/qBZ6vtGgdHE
• SNIA Website: snia.org
• SNIA Educational Library: snia.org/library
• X: twitter.com/SNIA
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/snia
As AI workloads continue to scale, the physical infrastructure supporting them must evolve to deliver the performance, reliability, and efficiency required by modern data-intensive applications. This webinar will focus on the interconnect foundations of AI infrastructure, including storage. There will be an emphasis on the form factors, connectors, cables, and transceivers standards that enable scalable and interoperable systems.
We’ll explore how SNIA’s SFF Technical Work Group is contributing to the development of physical layer standards that support high-performance interconnects and storage devices used in AI environments. Topics will include the importance of transceiver innovation and the need to evolve; the role that form factors like EDSFF play; and how innovative cabling and connector designs support the adoption of high-speed signaling technologies like PCIe 8.0 and beyond.
This session is ideal for architects, engineers, and technologists who want to understand how physical infrastructure standards are enabling the next generation of AI systems.
Read the webinar Q&A blog: "Q&A: 400G and PCIe 8.0 in Next-Gen Interconnects" snia.org/blog/2026/qa-400g-and-pcie-80-next-gen-interconnects
Key Concepts:
• Transceiver development for out-of-box signaling
• Connectors and cables for high-speed inbox signaling
• Copper vs. optical and the challenges of both
• SSD form factor innovations and their impact on density and thermal design
Presented by Anthony Constantine, Micron Technology; Tom Palkert, Samtec; Erik Smith, Dell Technologies
Learn More:
Read the Q&A blog: snia.org/blog/2026/qa-400g-and-pcie-80-next-gen-interconnects
Listen to the Podcast: youtu.be/qBZ6vtGgdHE
• SNIA Website: snia.org
• SNIA Educational Library: snia.org/library
• X: twitter.com/SNIA
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/snia

![Nanopore sequencing of synthetic libraries of RNA oligonucleotides
Photolithography is one of the very approaches that allow for the synthesis of nucleic acid microarrays in situ, and characteristic aspects of in situ microarray synthesis are high-throughput and high-density, delivering several hundreds of thousands of unique sequences in a single run and on a single, small surface (Figure 1). Microarray synthesis has traditionally focused on the preparation of DNA microarrays to obtain complex DNA libraries. These have been used in the context of DNA data storage, gene synthesis and other nanotechnology applications [1]. Recently, our group has shown that photolithography is amenable to prepare RNA microarrays as well, at identical throughput and density [2]. It remains the only available chemical approach that can deliver complex synthetic RNA libraries with total control on the sequence. RNA microarrays can be used to interrogate the sequence preference of enzymes and RNA-binding proteins, but they are also ideally poised to generate RNA libraries for off-array applications. We can produce pools of RNA sequences between 75 and 100-nt in length which can be sequenced directly by Nanopore sequencing without any intermediate purification step [3]. Our photolithography platform also allows for the introduction of biologically relevant base modifications, of which m6A, 5mC and inosine are already available and preliminary data shows that m6A can be accurately basecalled. Simultaneously, nanopore sequencing data returns crucial information on the synthetic error-rate of RNA photolithography. This talk will focus on presenting the technology of RNA photolithography and on describing how RNA libraries can be prepared and sequenced.
Presented by
Jory Lietard, University of Vienna
This is a presentation from the 2026 Storage and Computing with DNA Conference.
· Learn More about the SNIA DNA Data Storage Alliance: https://www.snia.org/groups/snia-dna-technology-affiliate
· SNIA Educational Library: https://snia.org/library
· X: https://twitter.com/SNIA
· LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/snia/ Nanopore sequencing of synthetic libraries of RNA oligonucleotides](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VNJYQbz7MTY/mqdefault.jpg)








