By Jonathan Anthony
Publication Date: 2026-10-14 11:14:00
AI infrastructure networking is approaching a physical turning point as the copper links that tie GPUs together inside a rack strain under ever-faster signaling speeds. The move to light-based interconnects could redraw the boundaries of what counts as a single AI system.
Cisco Systems Inc. is pressing that transition on several fronts, from new silicon and pluggable optics to an optical standard developed with Nvidia Corp. The industry now sits at the pivot point between electrical and optical interconnects, according to Rakesh Chopra (pictured), senior vice president of silicon and systems architecture and Cisco Fellow at Cisco.
“Right now, in-rack copper, in-system copper … is not a durable place to stand,” Chopra said. “It will switch to optical. My guess is what you’ll see is in a handful of years, that’ll be the norm, and that allows you to take your scale-up domain from a single rack to row-scale or beyond.”
Chopra spoke with theCUBE Research’s John Furrier…
