Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to photonic-interconnection-based compute clusters that provide high-speed, high-bandwidth interconnections between compute cluster nodes. In one embodiment of the present invention, the compute cluster includes a photonic interconnection having one or more optical transmission paths for transmitting independent frequency channels within an optical signal to each node in a set of nodes. The compute cluster includes one or more photonic-interconnection-based writers, each writer associated with a particular node, and each writer encoding information generated by the node into one of the independent frequency channels. A switch fabric directs the information encoded in the independent frequency channels to one or more nodes in the compute cluster. The compute cluster also includes one or more photonic-interconnection-based readers, each reader associated with a particular node, and each reader extracting the information encoded in the independent frequency channels directed to the node for processing.