CPO manufacturing is becoming more productive, with automation lifting throughput roughly five- to sixfold in optical-component assembly and testing, according to a SPIL executive cited by DIGITIMES. SPIL, part of ASE Technology $ASX, packages and tests chips and works with NVIDIA on co-packaged optics. The executive described early production lines processing fewer than 10 units per hour. Automation has since improved throughput, with a longer-term goal of reaching triple-digit hourly output. Current CPO demand remains concentrated in scale-out networks connecting servers. The executive said manufacturers can still accommodate that demand despite the remaining manual work in assembly and testing. Broader adoption in scale-up networks linking accelerators brings another challenge: whether today’s CPO architectures can meet those requirements. Designs vary across customers and product generations, making manufacturing processes difficult to replicate. For us, the next question is how much of the automation and production experience from today’s scale-out products can carry over to the designs customers choose for scale-up. $ASX $NVDA