NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has poured cold water on the hype around silicon photonics, saying the technology is still years away from practical use.
Instead, he believes the world should continue relying on tried-and-true copper interconnects for high-performance computing.
Silicon photonics is often hailed as the future of data transmission. By combining silicon chips with laser technology, it promises ultra-fast data transfers and reduced latency between CPUs and GPUs. Yet, according to Huang, packaging challenges mean the shift won’t happen soon. For now, NVIDIA will stick with copper, which he insists still has plenty of life left.
NVIDIA is working with TSMC on silicon photonics research, and the company already has products like Quantum-X Photonics networking switches planned for this year and Spectrum-X Photonics Ethernet switches slated for 2026. These show that NVIDIA has silicon photonics in its roadmap-but not as an immediate replacement for copper.
Huang explained that integrating photonics directly into GPU tiles could eventually unlock scalability and performance gains, but this requires a full architectural overhaul. Until then, copper remains the most reliable option to meet the AI industry’s enormous computing demands.
Industry watchers expect silicon photonics to play a huge role by the end of the decade. But in the near term, NVIDIA’s strategy is clear: double down on copper interconnects, while slowly laying the groundwork for a photonics-powered future.