The NPO Standards Industry Summit, co-hosted by IPEC and OIF, concluded with a consensus on international NPO standards, a development that could reshape the global optical interconnect industry. The event, held on September 10 at the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center, brought together top players from across the global industry chain, including experts from OIF, CAICT, Tencent, Alibaba Cloud, Baidu, Huawei, Broadcom, SENKO, Amphenol, and Yamaichi. The agreement on standards is significant because it lays a solid foundation for the industry upgrade and large-scale commercial use of near-packaged optics (NPO), a technology that promises to address the growing energy and scalability challenges of traditional optical modules. As reported by Media OutReach Newswire, the summit focused on NPO evolution and international standards development, with in-depth discussions on ecosystem upgrade and industry chain collaboration.
The importance of this consensus cannot be overstated. With SuperPoDs expanding in scale, traditional optical modules are consuming huge amounts of energy, and co-packaged optics (CPO) faces constraints such as a closed industry chain and complex operations and maintenance. 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), emphasized that NPO, with its excellent energy efficiency, 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. 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'. This call to action underscores the collaborative effort needed to transition NPO from a promising technology to a commercially viable solution.
Industry leaders also highlighted the technical trajectory and commercial readiness of NPO. Jiang Zhibin, Optical Network Architect at Tencent, noted that as SuperPoDs expand and SerDes data rates increase, optical interconnect solutions will advance more rapidly towards 6.4T NPO, requiring opto-electronic collaborative design to overcome advanced packaging challenges. Dr. Man Jiangwei, Director of the Advanced Opto-Electronics Laboratory at Huawei, announced that Huawei has launched the industry's first high-bandwidth 7.2T NPO product and demonstrated dynamic transmission at the IPEC exhibition booth. This product features 'high bandwidth, high reliability, and high availability' while achieving 'low latency, low power consumption, and low cost', thanks to key technologies like built-in light sources and highly-integrated SiPh chips. Such advancements indicate that NPO is not just a theoretical solution but is already demonstrating commercial maturity.
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. This joint exhibition strengthened industry confidence in building an open and prosperous NPO ecosystem. The success of the summit and exposition marks a milestone for the global NPO industry, as it streamlined collaboration paths between standards organizations and the industry chain. The consensus on international NPO standards is expected to accelerate the large-scale commercial use of NPO, enabling more efficient and sustainable data center interconnects. As the industry moves forward, the foundation laid at this summit will be crucial for realizing the full potential of NPO and meeting the growing demands of SuperPoD interconnect.
