New to networking, need some help.

I am doing an online course in networking right now and I have an assignment question right now in which I am completely drawing a blank.

I need to find a new (recent or upcoming) networking technology that I can use to compare based on the LAN backbone design (collapsed/distributed/parallel) i.e. a new technology which is affected by the structure of the LAN backbone.

I have searched a lot here and there and been unable to find any such thing. I took a look at SD-LAN but it seems to be unaffected by LAN structures.

If something comes to your mind, I'd be really grateful if you can point me to the right direction, in terms of what to search for. Thanks!