Copper wire will not be entirely replaced by optical fiber in data transmission and will persist as an option in microelectronic wire bonding. The advent of AI has driven an increase in the number of graphical processing units (GPUs) in data center server racks, which in turns means more fiber is required. By using light to transmit data, optical interconnects offer significant advantages over copper, including higher bandwidth, lower latency, and reduced power consumption. Copper has long been the backbone of electronic interconnections due to its excellent electrical conductivity and relatively low. If you pack too many copper wires together, eventually you'll run out of space—if they don't melt together first. Accommodating the data-guzzling demands of AI means the. Pluggable optical modules running on PAM4 DSPs have become fundamental for server-to-switch and switch-to-switch connectivity: the vast majority of connections from 5 meters to 2 kilometers inside data centers or campuses today are forged with PAM4 DSP-based optical modules. Bandwidth has doubled. While copper still dominates ultra-short reach connectivity within racks, and pluggable optics remain the workhorse of scale-out data center fabrics, the panelists agreed that CPO represents the future of high-performance interconnect—particularly for scale-up GPU clusters where traditional modules. Optical connectivity, utilizing fiber-optic technology, has emerged as the superior choice for modern networking, offering unparalleled performance, reliability, and scalability. For example, a typical 10 Gbps copper Ethernet link (such as Cat 6A) over 100 meters can consume approximately 5 to 8+.