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Co-packaged optics (CPO) is a credible answer to one specific problem: the electrical path between a switch chip and its optical modules is becoming too lossy, power-hungry and space-consuming for very dense AI networks. For those fabrics it deserves serious evaluation. As a general answer for the data center industry, the evidence does not support the word “savior.” Most of the headline figures come from the companies selling the technology, the independent field record is short, and CPO moves cooling, assembly, cabling and repair into the switch system itself.
What co-packaged optics changes
In a conventional design, the switch ASIC sends high-speed electrical signals across the circuit board and through connectors to a pluggable optical module at the faceplate, where the signal becomes light. CPO integrates the optical engines with the switch silicon in a common package or a closely integrated substrate, so the conversion happens next to the chip and fibers carry the light out of the package. It is a change to packaging and system architecture, not simply a faster transceiver.
| Factor | Pluggable optics | Co-packaged optics |
|---|---|---|
| Where electrical signals become light | Faceplate module, after board traces and connectors | Optical engine beside or within the switch package |
| Electrical loss on a 200 Gb/s channel | As much as 22 dB (NVIDIA comparison, 2025) | Approximately 4 dB (NVIDIA comparison, 2025) |
| Interface power | Often 30 W (NVIDIA comparison, 2025) | As low as 9 W (NVIDIA comparison, 2025) |
| Optics power | Baseline in Broadcom’s comparison | 65 percent lower (Broadcom, 2025, vendor-reported test comparison) |
| Cooling requirement | Not stated in the cited sources | Liquid cooling on NVIDIA’s announced photonics switches; facility cost not quantified |
| Field replacement | Faceplate module, comparatively easy to swap | A fault in an optical engine can involve the switch package or system; repair procedure not stated across vendors |
For engineering background beyond vendor material, the 2023 review “Co-packaged optics (CPO): status, challenges, and solutions” in Frontiers of Optoelectronics is a useful starting point. It predates the 2025 product announcements discussed below. Read the review.
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NVIDIA: electrical loss, interface power and platform claims
In its August 18, 2025 technical blog, NVIDIA compares a pluggable architecture with CPO. It reports electrical loss on 200 Gb/s channels falling from as much as 22 dB to approximately 4 dB, and interface power falling from often 30 W to as low as 9 W. At the platform level it cites 3.5x power efficiency, 10x resiliency and 1.3x faster time-to-operation. These are NVIDIA’s own comparisons. They are not independent industry measurements and should not be read as an average across data centers. NVIDIA’s blog post is the primary source for these figures.
#1 Best Overall
- 10GBASE-SR SFP+ to LC Optical 10 Gigabit Ethernet Fiber transceiver module, 10GbE Multimode SFP+(compatible with both 62.5um and 50um LC cables; supports OM1/OM2/OM3/OM4 fiber cables), Duplex LC connector, 850nm, DDM, up to 300m.
- [Wide Compatibility] Compatible with Cisco SFP-10G-SR, Meraki MA-SFP-10GB-SR, Ubiquiti UniFi UF-MM-10G, Fortinet, Mikrotik, Netgear, D-Link, Supermicro, TP-Link and Other Open Switches.
- [Easy to Use] Easy installation, plug and play, fully hot-pluggable with ESD protection. Widely used in network switch, server, or NIC with SFP+ to a 10 Gigabit fiber channel network with multimode LC for Network Attached Storage(NAS), Storage Area Network(SAN), and High Performance Computing(HPC) applications.
- [Durable & Low Power Consumption] Adopt high quality alloy, the shell is strong and wear-resistant; Low power consumption(less than 1.05watt) and low EMI emission design. SFP MSA Compliant, IEEE 802.3ae Compliant. Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C.
- [What you Get] 2x 100% tested 10GBase-SR modules, 3-Year warranty and lifetime tech support.
Broadcom: the Meta test milestone
On October 1, 2025, Broadcom reported one million cumulative 400G-equivalent port device hours without a link flap in testing with Meta. The company also said its data show a 65 percent reduction in optics power compared with pluggable solutions. The release describes a high-temperature lab characterization environment. That makes the milestone a meaningful reliability signal for one test setup. It is not a field-reliability figure across deployments.
Near Margalit, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Optical Systems Division, said: “Achieving one million link flap-free hours is a strong validation of Broadcom’s commitment to quality and innovation.” That is an executive’s view of the company’s own milestone. Broadcom’s release has the full context.
Broadcom: 200G per lane
On May 15, 2025, Broadcom announced third-generation CPO technology with 200G-per-lane capability. The announcement is as useful for what it lists as for the headline speed: work on OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) processes, thermal design, handling, fiber routing and yield. Those items show that CPO is as much a manufacturing and operations problem as an optics one. Read the announcement.
Rank #2
- 10GBASE-SR SFP+ to LC Optical 10 Gigabit Ethernet Fiber transceiver module, 10GbE Multimode SFP+(compatible with both 62.5um and 50um LC cables; supports OM1/OM2/OM3/OM4 fiber cables), Duplex LC connector, 850nm, DDM, up to 300m.
- [Wide Compatibility] Compatible with Cisco SFP-10G-SR, Meraki MA-SFP-10GB-SR, Ubiquiti UniFi UF-MM-10G, Fortinet, Mikrotik, Netgear, D-Link, Supermicro, TP-Link and Other Open Switches.
- [Easy to Use] Easy installation, plug and play, fully hot-pluggable with ESD protection. Widely used in network switch, server, or NIC with SFP+ to a 10 Gigabit fiber channel network with multimode LC for Network Attached Storage(NAS), Storage Area Network(SAN), and High Performance Computing(HPC) applications.
- [Durable & Low Power Consumption] Adopt high quality alloy, the shell is strong and wear-resistant; Low power consumption(less than 1.05watt) and low EMI emission design. SFP MSA Compliant, IEEE 802.3ae Compliant. Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C.
- [What you Get] 4x 100% tested 10GBase-SR modules, 3-Year warranty and lifetime tech support.
Where CPO is most likely to fit
The clearest case in the cited material is large AI clusters. NVIDIA describes topologies that move switches toward the end of a row. That lengthens the distance between servers and switches and makes optical links necessary for more connections. This is the condition under which electrical reach, bandwidth density and power become expensive enough to justify changing the packaging.
CPO is a stronger candidate where:
- Link speeds have already pushed electrical reach over board traces and connectors to its limit.
- Port counts are high enough that interface power multiplies across thousands of links.
- The facility can run liquid cooling and has staff trained in assembly and fiber handling.
- The operator can qualify a platform and accept a narrower supplier ecosystem for now.
Conventional enterprise traffic, lower-speed fabrics, and operators who cannot absorb a switch-level service event are poorer fits. CPO does not replace all copper or all pluggable optics in every data center.
Where the platforms stand
NVIDIA’s August 2025 post gave planned availability in early 2026 for its Quantum-X InfiniBand photonics switches, and in the second half of 2026 for its Spectrum-X Ethernet photonics switches. The post lists these configurations:
Rank #3
- 1000BASE-LX/LH SFP to LC Optical Gigabit Ethernet Fiber transceiver module, 1.25G Singlemode MiniGBIC SFP(supports OS1/OS2/OS3 fiber cables), Duplex LC connector, 1310nm, DDM, up to 13km.
- [Wide Compatibility] Compatible with Cisco GLC-LH-SMD, Meraki MA-SFP-1GB-LX10, Ubiquiti UniFi, Fortinet, Mikrotik, TP-Link TL-SM311LS and Other Open Switches. Widely support Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, Other Optical Links and other devices.
- [Easy to Use] Easy installation, plug and play, fully hot-pluggable with ESD protection. Widely used in fiber switches, routers, NIC, server or other fiber optic equipments with 1Gbps SFP ports. SFP MSA Compliant, IEEE 802.3ab Compliant.
- [Superior DDM Monitoring] DDM allows you to monitor the critical information concerning the status of the transmitted and received signals of the transceivers in real-time to find out some potential problems. Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C.
- [What you Get] 1x 100% tested 1000Base-LX module, 3-Year warranty and lifetime tech support. 10Gtek is a manufacturer of transceiver, customized service is available.
| Switch | Switching capacity | Ports |
|---|---|---|
| Quantum-X photonics switch (InfiniBand) | 115 Tb/s | 144 × 800 Gb/s |
| Spectrum SN6810 (Spectrum-X Ethernet) | 102.4 Tb/s | 128 × 800 Gb/s |
| Spectrum SN6800 (Spectrum-X Ethernet) | 409.6 Tb/s | 512 × 800 Gb/s |
Both planned windows now fall in the past or the current year. The 2025 announcements do not confirm shipping status, production volume or customer deployments. The cited sources also contain no independent figure for CPO market share, installed base or adoption rate, so no market-wide adoption claim is supported here.
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The hard problems
Thermal management
Optical engines sit close to high-power switch silicon, which creates thermal design constraints. OCP’s June 2025 webinar agenda explicitly included the role of liquid cooling in CPO clusters, and NVIDIA’s announced photonics switches are liquid cooled. Cooling therefore becomes part of the system design and the operating budget. The cited sources do not quantify what that cooling costs a facility.
Assembly and yield
Optical engines, electronics, fiber interfaces and switch silicon have to be assembled and qualified together. Yield and qualification therefore become questions about the assembled package, not only about each optical part. The sources name these manufacturing steps but do not report yield figures, so yield is an open question for any buyer to raise directly with a supplier.
Rank #4
- 1. High-Speed Performance: 10Pack SFP+ 10GBase-SR module delivers rapid 10Gbps data transmission over short distances using 850nm multi-mode fiber, perfect for data-heavy tasks in contemporary data centers, enterprise networks, and even home environments. It can seamlessly connect to 10Gb Ethernet switches, edge routers, and media converters, and is backward compatible with 1Gbps devices, providing flexibility and scalability for various network setups.
- 2. Versatile Compatibility: Featuring an LC/UPC interface and supporting a range of multi-mode fiber types (OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4), it ensures flexibility across diverse network setups. Compatible with MSA compliant equipment such as Cisco, Meraki, Ubiquiti, D-Link, Supermicro, TP-Link, Broadcom, Linksys, Huawei, MikroTik, Netgear, and other open switches. It effortlessly integrates into different brand devices for swift and efficient network deployments.
- 3. Plug and Play SFP Transceiver: Equipped with duplex LC connectors, this module facilitates easy installation and is hot-pluggable, adhering to SFP+MSA (Multi-Source Agreement) standards and supporting DDM (Digital Diagnostics Monitoring). This feature ensures uninterrupted connectivity during installation or replacement processes.
- 4. Robust and Efficient Design: Designed for durability, the module boasts minimal power consumption (under 1.05 watts) and low electromagnetic interference (EMI). Its heat-conducting properties enhance longevity, making it suitable for both rigorous enterprise environments and demanding home setups.
- 5. FTTPVIPS Comprehensive Warranty and Support: Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, a 3-year warranty, and lifetime technical support, it offers assurance for critical applications like Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SAN), and High-Performance Computing (HPC). Its reliable 10GBase-SR SFP module capabilities make it an ideal choice for enhancing home network performance.
Reliability evidence
Field operations involve service events and failure modes beyond link flaps. A reliability milestone counted in link flaps does not, on its own, tell an operator how often a switch needs attention for other reasons. The checklist below sets out the questions that turn a headline number into operational evidence.
Serviceability
A faceplate pluggable is comparatively easy to replace. With CPO, a fault in an optical engine can involve the switch package or the whole system. External light sources and modular optical subassemblies can move some service functions out of the switch, which may help. The cited sources do not settle lifecycle cost, mean time to repair or repair strategy across vendors.
Cabling, rack assembly and qualification
OCP’s June 10, 2025 webinar, “Building Reliable at Scale AI Clusters with Co-packaged Optics,” described issues it considers overlooked. Its description states: “There are many system level issues with in-rack optical cabling and designing pull-out compute trays and cooling to be overcome that are often overlooked.” It adds: “In addition, obtaining a high level of reliability and efficient operations are critical especially with long AI training runs.” The OCP event page has the full description. Dense optical systems need repeatable fiber routing, installation and qualification procedures, and those procedures are operational work that must be built alongside the hardware.
Best Value
- Data Rate: 25Gb/s
- Interface: Dual LC connectors
- Reach1: up to 70 meters OM3 MMF; Reach2: up to 100 meters OM4 MMF
- Fiber Type: Dual LC OM3/OM4 multi-mode fiber
- Compatible with Cisco SFP-25G-SR-S
Interoperability and lock-in
Vendor figures come from different systems and test conditions, so a headline ratio does not transfer automatically between vendors or topologies. Buyers need to confirm multi-vendor interoperability and the breadth of the optics and fiber ecosystem, and to understand how much of the stack is tied to one supplier.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Questions to settle before you buy
- Define the power boundary. Ask whether a quoted saving covers the optical module only, the switch system or the whole network, and compare it with your current pluggable baseline on the same boundary.
- Match the workload and topology. Confirm that the comparison used a workload, reach, capacity and cooling setup similar to your own.
- Read the reliability test. Ask what was tested, for how long, at what temperature and workload, and how failure was defined. Ask whether service events and failures outside link flaps were counted.
- Request yield and qualification data. Ask for assembly yield, the qualification process, and the fiber-handling procedure the vendor expects in the field.
- Get the repair path in writing. Ask for the fault domain, the field-replaceable units, the spares strategy and the expected mean time to repair.
- Check facility readiness. Confirm liquid-cooling requirements, their power and floor implications, and that staff can service them.
- Verify interoperability and exit options. Confirm which components work across vendors and what a move away from one supplier would involve.
- Confirm availability now. Obtain shipping dates, lead times and reference deployments from the vendor rather than relying on the 2025 roadmap.
Used this way, CPO is a serious option for the dense AI fabrics where it was designed to help. Treated as a general upgrade, it asks more of an operator than the headline numbers suggest.
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