Morgan Stanley: CPO Not That Fast, Copper Cables Can Last Two More Years

According to TechFlow Research, Morgan Stanley's July 13 report indicates that large-scale adoption of CPO in Scale-Up networks is expected in 2029 and beyond, with only small-scale introduction in 2028. Recent market concerns about CPO "delays" are excessive; the core reason is that CPO involves rebuilding the supply chain for packaging, optical engines, and lasers, and NVIDIA's Feynman generation is the timing anchor for CPO rollout. Copper cables can last another two years thanks to innovations such as PAM4 modulation, DSP, and retimers. The evolution of AI cluster scale from 72 GPUs to 576 or even 1152 is the core driver. 2026 marks the starting point of the non-NVIDIA Scale-Up ecosystem, with AMD MI400, Amazon Trainium 3, and Microsoft Maia starting mass production; Astera Labs and Broadcom become the initial major beneficiaries. Morgan Stanley maintains overweight ratings on NVIDIA, Broadcom, Astera Labs, and Keysight.