At OFC 2026, NVIDIA showed optical I/O built on a 3D stack of a 7nm EIC and a 65nm PIC. Using clock forwarding with bandpass filtering, it breaks both the power and density bottlenecks of AI cluster interconnect, marking a new era for silicon photonics packaging.

Not one of the 14 talks debated whether CPO should happen, and that was the summit's most important signal. TSMC put 3.2 Tb/s on its 2026 roadmap, Advantest pegged test validation for 2027, and ficonTEC expects to ship half of its 25-year equipment total in the next 18 months. Once the debate ends, the winners shift from storytellers to whoever can deliver yield.