Credo is pushing optical links deeper into the AI data center with a new 1.6 Tb/s active light cable designed to reach across an entire row of equipment.

In an October 12 announcement, Credo said its 1.6T ZeroFlap Active Light Cable uses arrays of micro-emitters and photodetectors instead of pushing a small number of optical channels to extreme speeds. The company is targeting up to 50 meters of reach while drawing 12 watts per cable end.

This earlier Credo optics post covers the company’s acquisition of DustPhotonics, background that helps explain its broader push into silicon photonics. It is separate from the new cable announcement.

Credo says the cable is about 30% lower power and 10 times lighter than comparable active electrical cables, with built-in channel redundancy intended to keep traffic flowing if one optical path degrades. An independent Data Center Intelligence report also notes that Credo and several optical suppliers are now working through the Open Compute Project to standardize this wider, parallel micro-emitter approach.

UC Santa Barbara professor John Bowers explains why silicon photonics and optical interconnects are becoming central to scaling AI systems.

The important limitation is timing: the ZeroFlap active light cable is planned to ship in 2027, so these are product targets rather than field results from broad deployment. Still, the direction lines up with BitcoinVersus.Tech’s coverage of optical switching, tight AI-optics supply, and Lightmatter’s bidirectional optical links: copper is still dominant at short reach, but optics keeps moving closer to the rack.

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