Nvidia Foregoes Co-Packaged Optics in GPUs Due to Reliability Concerns, Focuses on Networking Chips

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated on Tuesday that co-packaged optics, a technology designed to enhance energy efficiency and speed in chip connections, is not yet reliable enough for use in the company's flagship GPUs. While Nvidia will implement this technology in new networking chips for servers, aiming for a 3.5-fold increase in energy efficiency, it will continue using traditional copper connections for GPUs due to their superior reliability. Huang emphasized the importance of a dependable product roadmap for customers like OpenAI and Oracle, citing the significant investments being made in AI infrastructure. Startups are still pursuing co-packaged optics for AI chips, Nvidia believes copper connections are currently the more reliable option for GPUs.