Co-packaged optics (CPO) has finally moved out of the laboratory. As NVIDIA ships its new-generation Spectrum-X CPO switch to some partners and Broadcom's 51.2T Bailly CPO switch continues small-volume shipments, CPO has officially entered the mass production stage.
The Spectrum-X CPO switch was developed by NVIDIA in collaboration with TSMC, uses the COUPE advanced packaging process, has a processing capacity of 400Tb/s, and its capacity will further expand in the second half of 2026. Broadcom's 51.2T Bailly CPO switch is being brought into mass production with assistance from Delta Electronics and Micas Networks. It can reduce power consumption by up to 70% compared with traditional pluggable optical transceiver modules, and hyperscale players such as Meta have completed deployment verification.
However, CPO's path to scale is not smooth. TrendForce points out that CPO switches are facing three core bottlenecks. First, optical engines must integrate components such as lasers and modulators; the process is complex, yield requirements are high, and combined with thermal management issues, only a few suppliers have mass production capability. Second, silicon photonics wafer foundry and back-end packaging have high precision and reliability requirements, capacity construction cycles are long, and short-term supply elasticity is insufficient. In addition, CPO switches have greatly increased their dependence on advanced packaging processes such as COUPE, but AI chips and high-performance computing are also competing for the same type of packaging capacity, causing supply chain resources to remain continuously constrained.
Faced with these challenges, leading manufacturers' response strategies show clear divergence. Some cloud giants lock in supply through long-term procurement agreements and make strategic investments in upstream silicon photonics manufacturers. NVIDIA and TSMC are deepening cooperation to achieve vertical integration, while Google is accelerating in-house development of optical components to reduce reliance on external suppliers.
HGTECH's subsidiary Huagong Zhengyuan has taken its own path on the NPO technology route. The company's R&D head introduced: "NPO is a compromise solution between traditional pluggable modules and CPO. By moving the optical engine closer to the switch ASIC chip, it greatly shortens the electrical signal path, achieving lower power consumption and lower latency while retaining the independent replaceability of optical components." The company has taken the lead in releasing a 6.4T NPO solution, targeting large-scale expansion interconnection scenarios for AI computing power clusters, achieving 6.4Tb/s transmission and a 10x improvement in data density.
For North American buyers, the selection of CPO technology requires balancing short-term deployment needs with long-term architecture evolution. At the current stage, where the CPO supply chain is still constrained by optical engine yield and advanced packaging capacity, it is recommended to position CPO as a supplementary solution for specific high-density scenarios rather than a full replacement for pluggable optical modules. IDC expects large-scale CPO commercialization to gradually unfold from 2027 to 2028. Buyers should closely monitor suppliers' vertical integration capabilities in silicon photonics design and optical engine manufacturing.
