Corning announced a strategic collaboration with Broadcom to supply critical optical components for the Bailly co-packaged optics (CPO) system—Broadcom’s 51.2 Tbps Ethernet switch targeting AI-driven data centers. The partnership advances efforts to scale network capacity, power efficiency, and interconnect density to support the rapid growth of AI workloads.
Broadcom’s Bailly platform integrates eight 6.4 Tbps silicon photonics optical engines alongside the Tomahawk 5 Ethernet switch, leveraging CPO architecture to bring optics and electronics into a single package. Corning’s role involves providing high-precision fiber infrastructure components including connectors, polarization-maintaining fibers, and fiber array units (FAUs), all engineered to meet the stringent requirements of CPO design.
CPO technology is increasingly seen as foundational to AI infrastructure, allowing higher bandwidth and lower power consumption by shortening the distance between electrical and optical domains. Corning’s contribution ensures seamless, reliable connectivity between external laser modules and the tightly integrated silicon photonics engines—an essential enabler for data center operators aiming to deploy 200G per lane and beyond.
Corning has also introduced the CPO FlexConnect™ Fiber, a bend-optimized single mode fiber that mitigates multi-path interference and enhances overall optical system performance in dense CPO environments. This ongoing innovation reflects Corning’s broader strategy to support AI hyperscalers through high-performance optical infrastructure tailored to evolving bandwidth and efficiency demands.
- Corning to supply optical connectivity for Broadcom’s Bailly co-packaged optics system.
- Broadcom’s Bailly is the first 51.2 Tbps CPO-based Ethernet switch, built for AI data center scaling.
- CPO architecture improves bandwidth density and power efficiency by co-locating optics and electronics.
- Corning provides fiber harnesses, connectors, polarization-maintaining fibers, and FAUs for precision integration.
- The two companies are jointly developing next-gen 200G/lane CPO solutions for even greater performance.
“We’re delivering an optical connectivity solution that enables unprecedented speeds and bandwidth concentrations with lower power consumption and costs,” said Benoit Fleury, Director, CPO Business Development at Corning.
“Our multi-year collaboration with Corning on high-density fiber connectivity for the TH5-Bailly CPO system has resulted in breakthrough performance at scale,” said Sheng Zhang, CTO of the Optical Systems Division, Broadcom.
