This cute little green cable may look innocuous, but it can carry data along its core at a breathtaking 800Gbps. Based on Intel’s Silicon Photonics technology, the cables uses 64 fibres — 32 for transmitting and 32 for receiving — each capable of moving data at 25Gbps.
Multiply that up, and it can shift 800Gbps in each direction, an aggregate of 1.6Tbps. Those fibres are brought together at the end by an MXC connector — which doesn’t stand for anything — which is significantly slimmer than a standard ethernet cable head.
But don’t expect to swap your USB 3.0 or Cat 5 cable for MXC anytime soon. The cables are really designed to take the place of interconnect cables in data centres and supercomputers, where they’re intended to replace the 10Gbps cables commonly used to connect switches and the like. Maybe one day, though, you’ll have a super-fast green cable too. [Intel via Ars Technica