Co-packaged optics (CPO) puts optical components right alongside—or even on top of—the data center switch ASIC. That's a shift from traditional pluggable optical modules. From Jensen Huang showcasing CPO switches at GTC 2025 to a wide range of vendors demonstrating optical engines integrated inside ASIC packages at OFC 2025, CPOs are everywhere. Right now, switches connect to network interface cards (NICs) using optical transceivers and digital signal processors (DSPs) to. Traditional electrical interconnects and pluggable optical module technologies are approaching their performance limits when dealing with network speed demands of 800G, 1. CPO offers a solution by reducing signal loss, improving power efficiency, and enabling.