Today a rack draws 120 kW; the next generation will exceed 0.5 MW. At ECOC 2026, Microsoft asked a true customer's question: if optics were cheap enough, why keep this architecture? The answer came as a five-number spec sheet, plus a declaration that the die, not the package, is now the unit of design, assembly and failure.

CPO is no longer “always two years away” — NVIDIA is already in volume production. LightCounting's packed CPO/NPO conference laid out the standards battle, NPO/CPO coexistence and the new wide-and-slow variable, showing the industry's focus has shifted from “does it work” to “who can reliably ramp to millions of units.”