Pluto is merchant silicon in a box, like all their other switches.
"""Regularly upgrading network fabrics with
the latest generation of commodity switch silicon allows
us to deliver exponential growth in bandwidth capacity
in a cost-effective manner."""
I wasn't intending to claim that Pluto is custom silicon but rather that Pluto is an example of Google looking for simplicity, more (compute) power, and less (electrical) power.
The next step in that set of goals for their data center would be custom silicon where merchant silicon doesn't provide the right combination.
The next step in that set of goals for their data center would be custom silicon where merchant silicon doesn't provide the right combination.