Nvidia begins full production of co-packaged optics switch for AI data centers

NVIDIA ↘ 0.06% has moved its Spectrum-X Ethernet Photonics platform — a co-packaged optics (CPO) Ethernet switch — into full production, marking what the company says is the first CPO networking switch to reach volume manufacturing for AI data centers.storagereview+1

The platform integrates optical engines directly adjacent to the switching silicon using 200Gb/s SerDes, eliminating conventional pluggable optical transceivers. NVIDIA claims the design achieves 4x fewer lasers, 5x lower power consumption, and 10x higher mean time between incidents compared to traditional approaches.youtube+1

A Five-Vendor Supply Chain

In an unusual level of transparency, NVIDIA disclosed the full manufacturing chain behind the switch. TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited ↘ 0.96% handles silicon photonics fabrication. SPIL performs chip-scale packaging and testing. Lumentum ↗ 5.19% fabricates the laser chips, while TFC Communication builds laser module subassemblies. Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. handles final switch system assembly.gurufocus+1

The named supply chain is notable because co-packaged optics has long been viewed as difficult to yield at volume. Cloud providers including CoreWeave, Lambda, Oracle ↘ 3.65% Cloud Infrastructure, Microsoft ↘ 0.30% Azure, IBM International Business Machines Corporation ↘ 1.19% Cloud, and Nebius are among early adopters integrating the CPO fabric.storagereview

Strategic Optical Investments

NVIDIA has backed its CPO ambitions with substantial capital. In March, the company announced separate $2 billion investments in both Coherent and Lumentum to secure advanced laser and optical networking supply through 2030. Coherent has collaborated with NVIDIA on silicon photonics networking since at least early 2025, while Lumentum's role as the laser chip fabricator in the Spectrum-X supply chain makes it a direct production partner.lightwaveonline+2

According to a recent NVIDIA SEC filing, the company's Coherent stake is part of a broader investment portfolio that also includes positions in Intel ↘ 1.97%, CoreWeave, and Nokia ↗ 1.89%.techspot

Networking the Vera Rubin Platform

The switch is designed to serve as the networking fabric for NVIDIA's Vera Rubin compute platform, which entered full-scale manufacturing earlier this year with production shipments expected this fall. The Vera Rubin NVL72 rack integrates Vera CPUs, Rubin GPUs, and sixth-generation NVLink into a unified compute envelope that NVIDIA says delivers up to 10x higher agentic AI throughput compared to the previous Grace Blackwell architecture.storagereview

"Agentic AI is a new kind of workload. One prompt can launch a thousand-step journey of reasoning, retrieval, tool use and response generation," said Jensen Huang, NVIDIA's CEO. "Vera Rubin was built for this moment."storagereview