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arXiv · 2610.13061

Capturing Electrical Windows Through Reconfigurable Optical Networks: Transfer-aware Scheduling of Multi-Region AI Data Centers

Xi Tong·Zijian Li·Xiaoyi Fan·Cong Zhang·Ershun Du·Qin Wang
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Abstract

Artificial-intelligence data centers (AIDCs) can provide spatiotemporal load flexibility by migrating training workloads in response to regional electricity prices and renewable-energy (RE) availability. However, transfer-blind scheduling may overestimate migration benefits by overlooking transfer time or prevent training from resuming within renewable-rich or low-price windows when considering transfer time. This paper proposes a transfer-aware compute-electricity-network scheduling framework that coordinates training placement, checkpoint transmission, and optical circuit switching (OCS) to improve local RE utilization and reduce grid-purchase cost. A compact compute-electricity master problem generates candidate schedules using estimated transfer delays. The framework then schedules optical circuits, verifies checkpoint delivery under shared-link capacity constraints, and revises infeasible schedules using updated delay estimates. It integrates day-ahead planning, event-triggered intraday updates, and real-time dispatch. In a five-AIDC benchmark with equal completed work and network resources, the proposed method reduces the real-time grid purchase cost by 12.50% and increases the local RE utilization by 2.724 percentage points relative to static optical operation. Sensitivity and ablation analyses indicate that OCS is particularly beneficial when renewable-rich or low-price windows shift across sites and network bottlenecks hinder timely checkpoint delivery.

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Xi Tong, Zijian Li, Xiaoyi Fan, Cong Zhang, Ershun Du, Qin Wang. 2026-10-09. Capturing Electrical Windows Through Reconfigurable Optical Networks: Transfer-aware Scheduling of Multi-Region AI Data Centers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13061

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