From chip to grid: OCP CEO George Tchaparian on redefining data center architecture for the AI era

Co-packaged optics (CPO) is emerging as a pivotal shift in AI data center architecture, exerting pressure on upstream photonics and packaging technologies while accelerating downstream integration of GPUs and switches. The dominance of proprietary management interfaces is slowing deployment and degrading cluster performance, underscoring the industry’s urgent need for open standards. From a policy perspective, if Taiwan fails to convert its manufacturing strengths into global standard-setting power, it risks losing technological influence. Competitors like NVIDIA and AMD may respond by accelerating proprietary open architectures to gain market share. Over the next 12 to 24 months, CPO will drive core infrastructure upgrades, with non-compliant vendors likely to be marginalized.