The inaugural meeting of the Domestic Working Group for the Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) standards project, organized under the leadership of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), was recently convened successfully in Beijing. Nvision, a core player in photonic and optoelectronic chips, was invited to attend. Together with officials from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), as well as representatives from telecommunications operators, leading cloud service providers, equipment vendors, optical device manufacturers, packaging and testing firms, and research institutes—more than 80 experts from 33 organizations across the industry value chain—participants jointly discussed the standardization roadmap for next-generation NPO solutions for AI computing.
As large-scale AI models and hyperscale AI computing clusters are rapidly deployed, demand for high-bandwidth, low-latency, and energy-efficient interconnect solutions has surged. In May this year, the proposal titled “12.8 Tb/s Optoelectronic Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) Module,” jointly submitted by CAICT in collaboration with Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba Cloud, and other partners, was formally approved as a project within the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF). This milestone marks a critical breakthrough for China in the international standardization of optical interconnects for AI computing. The establishment of the domestic working group creates a core platform for “domestic industry coordination and international standards contribution,” enabling upstream and downstream stakeholders to align on unified technical specifications and to address industry pain points such as interface incompatibility, high R&D costs, and slow pathways to industrial deployment.
The meeting featured in-depth discussions on key topics including the NPO industry landscape, AI computing cluster architectures, high-speed optical engines, high-density connectors, and advanced packaging and testing. Stakeholders shared technical roadmaps and practical challenges from multiple perspectives—including computing demand, switch hardware, optical engine solutions, module testing, and packaging technologies—and developed a number of actionable recommendations for standardization and industry collaboration.
As a company deeply engaged in silicon photonics, high-speed optical engines for NPO/CPO (co-packaged optics), and multi-wavelength light-source chips, Nvision has long focused on the localization of optical interconnects for AI computing. The company has independently developed a series of optical engines, including 3.2T NPO and 6.4T CPO products, while advancing high-density, on-chip integrated multi-wavelength light-source chips. These products are designed for next-generation near-packaged and co-packaged optical interconnect applications and are closely aligned with the standardization agenda of the working group.
During the meeting, Nvision’s technical team engaged in in-depth exchanges with leading industry enterprises and standards experts. Drawing on its R&D experience, the team discussed technical challenges related to NPO optical-engine bandwidth density, packaging compatibility, connector interoperability, and pluggable operation and maintenance, and offered constructive recommendations. These contributions are intended to support the formulation of unified domestic NPO technical specifications and to facilitate seamless alignment between domestically developed optoelectronic chip products and international standards.
NPO is a core enabling technology for the evolution of supernode AI computing clusters and a critical foundation for the high-quality development of China’s AI computing infrastructure. Going forward, Nvision will continue to participate actively in the working group’s standards discussions and technical validation activities. Leveraging its accumulated expertise in silicon-photonics heterogeneous integration, the company will share practical experience from the deployment of domestically developed products and work with industry partners to connect the full chain from technology and standards to volume manufacturing.
Looking ahead, Nvision will continue to follow national strategies for the development of the optoelectronics industry and join hands with industry peers to build an open and mutually beneficial NPO industrial ecosystem. By using standardization to drive technological innovation, the company aims to accelerate the large-scale commercial adoption of domestically developed high-speed optical interconnect chips and to contribute to the secure and controllable development of China’s AI computing infrastructure.
