Systems and method are provided. An illustrative system includes a first compute node having a first processing unit, a first compute node port, and a first peripheral component interconnect bus configured to carry data between the first processing unit and the first compute node port. The system may further include a multi-host network interface controller having a first multi-host port, where the first multi-host port is configured to connect with the first compute node port via a first peripheral component interconnect cable, a network port, where the network port is configured to receive a network interface of a networking cable, and processing circuitry configured to translate and carry data between the first multi-host port and the network port.