Huawei Unveils the World’s First Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) Engine with an On-Board Light Source (Hi-ONE)

At the HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 conference in Shanghai, Huawei announced the industry’s first optical engine featuring an integrated on-board light source, named Hi-ONE. Delivering a massive transmission capacity of 7.2 Tbps, this release makes Huawei the first company to enter mass production with this technology.

Key Features of the Hi-ONE Engine
Deployment in the Ascend 960 SuperPoD:

Built on the UnifiedBus plus Hi-ONE architecture, this engine reduces the required number of 800G optical modules inside the SuperPoD by 48,000 units, significantly cutting power consumption and elevating system reliability.

On-Board Light Source Design:

The Hi-ONE is the first optical engine to integrate an on-board light source, consolidating 36 optical transmission channels. This design boosts reliability tenfold to ensure the stability of long-duration AI model training tasks.

Reduced Power Consumption and Latency:

By utilizing Linear Direct-Drive architecture, the system eliminates the need for power-hungry oDSP chips—slashing power consumption by approximately 66% and transmission delay (latency) by 90%.

NPO Technology and Global Collaboration
What is NPO Technology?

NPO stands for Near-Packaged Optics. It is a technology that places optical engines in close physical proximity to core chips while preserving the operational independence of the engines.

International Standards Development:

In May 2026, the proposal for the 12.8 Tbps NPO Module standard—submitted by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), Huawei, and several other companies—was officially ratified by the global Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), gaining support from more than 40 international partners.

Source: EQS News