Strategic Intelligence Report
Generated July 29, 2026
Computing Interconnects
Co-Packaged Optics
Strategic importance is our editorial rating of how central this entity is to the technology landscape we track; confidence reflects how well-sourced and current the underlying evidence is.
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Chokepoint Score
no direct dependencies recorded in the graph
Overview
An emerging networking technology that integrates optical components directly onto chip packages to replace pluggable transceivers and, increasingly, copper itself — optical links deliver 4-20x more throughput per watt than copper, which industry veterans describe as having hit a 'power wall' at the scale modern AI clusters now require.
Dependency Map
One hop in each direction — see Strategic Connections below for the full, sourced breakdown of every relationship.
Showing the 5 most direct connections per side — see the interactive Dependency Map on the live entity page for the full graph.
Strategic Connections
Dependency
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Co-packaged optics manufacturing depends on TSMC's COUPE silicon photonics packaging process, which both NVIDIA and Broadcom rely on for their optical switch products.
- Coherent Corp: Coherent supplies photonic and optical components relevant to co-packaged optics and high-speed AI cluster networking.
- Corning: Corning is expanding US optical connectivity manufacturing to supply fiber-optic technologies for NVIDIA's rack-scale AI systems as they shift away from copper interconnects.
- Lumentum: Lumentum supplies optical components under a multibillion-dollar purchase agreement with NVIDIA, part of the broader shift toward optical interconnects in AI clusters.
- Aixtron: Aixtron's deposition equipment is used in manufacturing compound semiconductor components relevant to photonics and optical interconnects.
Development
- NVIDIA: NVIDIA develops co-packaged optics switches, including Quantum-X Photonics and Spectrum-X Photonics, built on TSMC's silicon photonics packaging process.
- Broadcom: Broadcom independently develops co-packaged optics technology for its Ethernet switching platforms, competing with NVIDIA's approach.
- Ayar Labs: Ayar Labs develops TeraPHY optical I/O chiplets as an alternative co-packaged optics approach, backed directly by NVIDIA and AMD as strategic investors, reaching a $3.75 billion valuation in 2026.
- Celestial AI: Celestial AI, since acquired by Marvell Technology for roughly $3.25 billion, developed Photonic Fabric technology delivering optically encoded data to any location on a chip die, a distinct approach from edge-of-package co-packaged optics.
Competition / Other
- Credo Technology: Credo Technology's optical DSP and connectivity products are part of the broader interconnect technology race alongside co-packaged optics approaches.
Strategic Risks
- Technology remains largely pre-commercial with initial products only shipping in 2026
- Requires advanced packaging capacity that is already supply-constrained for conventional chip packaging
Future Outlook
- Expected to become the dominant AI cluster interconnect method within 5 years as pluggable optics reach bandwidth and power limits
- Initial 2026 deployments focused on scale-out cross-rack connections before expanding to scale-up intra-rack use by 2027-2028
Sources
- AI2Work, citing Ayar Labs (Mar 2026) — Copper interconnects deliver 4-20x less throughput per watt than optical alternatives
- IDTechEx Research (Apr 2026) — NVIDIA and Broadcom race to dominate co-packaged optics for AI data centers
- NVIDIA (May 2026) — NVIDIA co-packaged optics deliver 5x power efficiency for agentic AI networking
Generated by InsightNodes — Technology Intelligence Platform. This report reflects sourced, evidence-backed information as of the dates cited above and is not investment advice.
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