Research fellow in optical switching for AI data centres, Dublin Pike

Post Summary Trinity is Ireland’s leading university and is ranked 75th in the world (QS World University Rankings 2026). Founded in 1592, the University is steeped in history with a reputation for excellence in education, research, and innovation, which has been inspiring generations of thinkers for over 400 years. Thrive: Trinity College Dublin's Strategic Plan 2025 - 2030

The exponential growth of AI and high-performance computing workloads is placing unprecedented demands on data centre interconnect (DCI) infrastructure, with interconnect power consumption now exceeding that of compute in many deployments. Optical switching has emerged as a transformative approach to address this scaling challenge, but realising its potential requires moving beyond fixed network configurations toward architectures that can dynamically adapt to the traffic patterns of the applications they serve.

AI and HPC workloads exhibit strong structural regularity in their communication patterns: collective operations, parameter synchronisation, and pipeline stages produce traffic flows that are far from random. This predictability opens an opportunity: by characterising traffic patterns in real time and reconfiguring the optical topology to match them, the interconnect can be tuned to the workload rather than provisioned for the worst case. Realising this requires intelligent network control capable of building dynamic models from live traffic, predicting near-term demand, and translating predictions into wavelength tuning, optical path reconfiguration, and hybrid optical/electronic switching decisions on millisecond-to-microsecond timescales.

This research will develop machine learning models for traffic pattern recognition and prediction in AI/HPC data centres, and integrate them into a multi-layer control plane that drives optical topology reconfiguration. The work will use real workload traces from industry partners and target measurable improvements in GPU utilisation, end-to-end latency, and energy per bit, contributing to the broader goal of an order-of-magnitude reduction in DCI power consumption.

Post status Specific Purpose Contract

Hours of Post 39 hours/week

Salary Appointment will be made on the SFI Team member salary scale, new postdoctoral researcher, level 2A or Experienced Post Doctoral Researcher (Level 2B), depending on experience, at a point in line with Government Pay Policy [€51,176 - €55,399 per annum], appointment will be made no higher than point 1, level 2B.

Application Procedure Applicants should submit a full Curriculum Vitae to include the names and contact details of 2 referees (including email addresses).

Closing date 12 Noon (Irish Standard Time), 1st June 2026

Informal enquiries Prof. Marco Ruffini, E:

Trinity College Dublin is Ireland’s premier university. We welcome applications from all individuals, including those with disabilities, those who have followed non-traditional career paths, and those who have taken time out for reasons such as family or caring responsibilities. We also welcome international applicants, includingthose who have been displaced due to conflict or war.

We are an EU Sustainable Gender Equality Champion and hold an Athena Swan Silver Award, recognising our ongoing work to advance gender equality both within Trinity and across the higher education sector. Trinity is committed to supporting work–life balance and creating a family-friendly working environment.

#J-18808-Ljbffr