The NPO Standards Industry Summit, co-hosted by IPEC and OIF, concluded on September 10 in Shenzhen with a consensus on international standards for near-packaged optics (NPO), a critical step toward large-scale commercial use of the technology in high-performance computing and data centers. The event, held at the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center, drew top players from across the global industry chain, including experts from OIF, CAICT, Tencent, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu, Huawei, Broadcom, SENKO, Amphenol, and Yamaichi.
Discussions focused on NPO evolution, ecosystem upgrade, and industry chain collaboration. Dr. Zhao Wenyu, Vice Chairman of IPEC and Deputy Director of the Technology and Standards Research Institute of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), highlighted the urgency: "As SuperPoDs continue to expand in scale, traditional optical modules are consuming huge amounts of energy, and co-packaged optics (CPO) faces constraints like a closed industry chain and complex operations and maintenance. In contrast, near-packaged optics (NPO) – with its excellent energy efficiency, a favorable trade-off in port density, and strong compatibility with existing pluggable ecosystems – is expected to become the preferred solution for SuperPoD interconnect in the near term, and coexist and evolve alongside CPO and other solutions in the long term." He called upon stakeholders across industry, academia, research institutions, and user groups to join hands in developing NPO standards and driving the NPO ecosystem to evolve from 'usable' to 'easy-to-use at scale'.
Jiang Zhibin, Optical Network Architect at Tencent, noted: "As SuperPoDs expand in scale and GPUs and switch chips increase their SerDes data rates, optical interconnect solutions will advance more rapidly towards 6.4T NPO." He emphasized the urgent need for opto-electronic collaborative design to overcome challenges introduced by advanced packaging processes. Dr. Man Jiangwei, Director of the Advanced Opto-Electronics Laboratory at Huawei, stated: "In exploring the optimal interconnect solution – NPO – for SuperPoDs, Huawei has launched the industry's first high-bandwidth 7.2T NPO product and successfully conducted a demonstration of dynamic transmission at the IPEC exhibition booth." He added that with key technologies like built-in light sources and highly-integrated SiPh chips, the product features 'high bandwidth, high reliability, and high availability' while achieving 'low latency, low power consumption, and low cost'.
At the China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE), the IPEC booth showcased the latest achievements of the global NPO industry chain, particularly from the US, Japan, and China. The display included high-density connector solutions from leading vendors in the US and Japan, as well as NPO modules of various capacities developed by multiple Chinese vendors, alongside several NPO switches, demonstrating a high level of commercial maturity. For more information on IPEC, visit https://www.ipec.org.
The consensus on international NPO standards and the streamlined collaboration paths between standards organizations and the industry chain lay a solid foundation for large-scale commercial use of NPO. This is critical for businesses reliant on AI and high-performance computing, as NPO promises to reduce energy consumption and costs while improving scalability. The joint exhibition of ecosystem products has strengthened industry confidence in building an open and prosperous NPO ecosystem. As SuperPoDs grow and data rates climb, NPO is positioned to become a key interconnect solution, with broad implications for data center efficiency and the advancement of AI infrastructure worldwide.
