CPO mass production has not been delayed; the key milestone has been moved forward.

ME AI News: AI computing power is surging, and the valuation ceiling for the optical interconnection sector is rising quickly under the “vague and beautiful” expectations. On the one hand, share prices are easily swayed by marginal information and can swing violently; on the other hand, after each pullback, the market value keeps setting new highs. Not long ago, a report from SemiAnalysis triggered a collective sell-off across the global optical communications sector. The pessimistic narrative of “CPO mass production delayed” shook the market, and even NVIDIA executives were reportedly compelled to urgently “refute rumors” during a conference in Taipei.

A reporter from 21st Century Business Herald also received confirmation from industry insiders close to NVIDIA, indicating that there is no delay in CPO mass production on the industry side. The market’s huge divergence may be conflating two entirely different cycles: “small-batch verification and introduction” versus “full-scale industry adoption.” The truth is far more complicated than a simple bullish or bearish view.

Several industry insiders told the reporter that what truly constrains CPO—and even the entire high-speed optical communications product lineup—is the upstream indium phosphide (InP) laser chips. The long time cycle involved in building optical chip production lines, along with customer validation, makes this the shortest bottleneck for current capacity expansion. In the long run, CPO remains the ultimate solution for training clusters of super-large models; in the short run, NPO, LPO, and traditional pluggable optical modules may form a multi-channel parallel pattern to share the demand for ultra-high-bandwidth computing. The hot race for computing power and bandwidth won’t cool down, but the rollout of high-speed optical interconnection technology is destined to be a slow market—starting with upstream capacity leading the way, followed by phased iterations.

(21st Century Business Herald) (Source: Tonghuashun)