Celestica introduced a new network switch on Oct. 12, 2026. The DS6005 puts fiber-optic parts directly on Broadcom's newest switch chip, instead of plugging them in through a separate module2. Gavin Cato announced the move at the 2026 OCP Global Summit in San Jose. He runs that work as Celestica's senior vice president and general manager.
The switch moves 102.4 trillion bits of data every second, split across 64 ports2. Each port alone carries 1.6 terabits. Broadcom's Tomahawk 6 chip sits underneath. Broadcom named that chip four days earlier, in its own preview of the show1.
Celestica Packs 64 Ports Into 102.4 Terabits of Switching
DS6005 switching capacity, by port count and per-port speed, announced Oct. 12, 2026
Each cube is one 1.6-terabit port on the switch; all 64 together add up to its full 102.4-terabit capacity.
Source: Celestica [2]. Chart by Kelly Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 1.6-terabit ports | 64 Tbps |
| Whole | 102.4 Tbps, each cube 1.6 Tbps |
Optics Move Inside the Switch
Co-packaged optics means the light-converting chips sit right next to the switch chip. They solder onto the same board, instead of plugging into a socket on the front panel. A regular switch takes light in through small plug-in modules. Those modules slow the signal and burn extra power, turning light into electricity and back again.
Cato described what the new design adds. "The DS6005 brings co-packaged optics, liquid cooling, field-replaceable external laser modules, and CPO-aware software management together in a compact platform designed to help customers build scalable and power-efficient AI fabrics," he said2.
Field-replaceable lasers matter. Co-packaged optics usually trade away easy repairs, but Celestica kept its lasers removable from outside the box. A technician can swap a failed one from outside the box, leaving the switch shut2.
The DS6005 also runs SONiC, an open-source switch operating system several hyperscalers already use2. Engineers who know that software skip a second learning curve.
Broadcom, Celestica and OpenAI Share One Stage
Four days before the show opened, Broadcom laid out its OCP plans, on Oct. 8, 20261. Charlie Kawwas framed the stakes that day. He is president of Broadcom's Semiconductor Solutions Group. "AI infrastructure demands are scaling faster than anything our industry has seen, and Ethernet is the foundation that makes that growth sustainable," he said.
Asad Khamisy delivered the summit's opening keynote on Oct. 121. He is senior vice president and general manager of Broadcom's Core Switching Group. Khamisy covered the same ground Mehta and Cato later detailed on the show floor. His topics: open networking, optical interconnects and rack designs built for clusters above 100,000 chips.
Manish Mehta explained how the two companies split the job. He is Broadcom's vice president of marketing and operations for its Optical Systems Division. "By combining Broadcom's Tomahawk 6 – Davisson platform and optical expertise with Celestica's system engineering and platform execution, the DS6005 demonstrates how our partnership is helping bring CPO to market for AI networking," he said2.
OpenAI sent its own engineer to the summit stage. Binbin Guan joined Mehta and Celestica's Tareq Bustami for a joint session on Oct. 12 called "Designing the Next AI Fabric: When Compute Meets Optics"1. A chipmaker, a system builder and an AI lab shared one panel, because each depends on the others to ship working hardware.
The Ecosystem Lines Up Behind One Chip
Two outside analysts backed the approach in Celestica's own release. Sameh Boujelbene called co-packaged optics one path among several. She is vice president of research at Dell'Oro Group. "Co-packaged optics is one of the industry's important paths to address these challenges, while pluggable, near-package, and co-packaged approaches will continue to coexist as the ecosystem matures," she said2.
Alan Weckel read the launch as proof the idea works past a lab bench. He founded the research firm 650 Group. "Co-packaged optics is moving from an industry theme toward production for AI networking, with an important near-term opportunity in controlled, high-density scale-out fabrics," he said2.
Five companies showed Tomahawk 6 hardware on the summit floor. Three of them, Celestica, Delta Electronics and Micas Networks, built their demo around the co-packaged version1. The other two showed the plain chip alone.
The Case for Waiting
One voice at the show pushed back on timing. Vladimir Kozlov runs LightCounting, a firm that tracks the optical networking market. He published his view on Jan. 27, 2026, 258 days before Celestica's launch4.
"The first CPO deployments will take place in smaller AI clusters, operated by companies willing to take more risk," Kozlov wrote4. He named two companies skipping the technology: Google and Arista. High-volume orders, he added, will wait on one of the five biggest cloud companies, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft or Oracle, to commit first.
Boujelbene's own forecast answers part of that caution. She expects pluggable optics to keep selling alongside co-packaged designs for years, rather than one quickly replacing the other2. The DS6005 enters a market still deciding which approach wins which job.
LightCounting Flagged CPO's Barrier 258 Days Before Celestica Shipped
Two dated events in the co-packaged optics story, January to October 2026
The first pin marks LightCounting's January research note on customer caution; the second marks Celestica's October launch, 258 days later.
Sources: Celestica [2]; LightCounting [4]. Chart by Kelly Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Jan. 27, 2026 | LightCounting flags the barrier |
| Oct. 12, 2026 | Celestica launches DS6005 |
What to Do
Ask any vendor pitching co-packaged optics one simple question: can a technician replace a failed laser from outside the box? Celestica built that answer into the DS6005 on purpose. The alternative costs far more downtime.
Track which of the five biggest cloud buyers moves first. Kozlov ties the real volume ramp to that single decision, past any one vendor's spec sheet. Ask a sales rep for a named paying customer instead of a pilot, before budgeting around this generation of hardware.
By the numbers
- 102.4 Tbps: the DS6005's total switching capacity, announced Oct. 12, 20262.
- 64 ports: each one carrying 1.6 terabits on its own2.
- 1.5OU: the switch's liquid-cooled height, built to fit OCP's ORv3 racks2.
- Four days: the gap between Broadcom's Oct. 8 preview and Celestica's Oct. 12 launch12.
- Three of five: showcase partners who built their OCP demo around the co-packaged chip, past the plain version1.
- 258 days: how long before Celestica's launch LightCounting flagged customer caution as the main barrier4.
- Five: the cloud companies Kozlov says must commit before volume orders start4.
What to watch
Watch which company buys the first large order of DS6005 switches. A purchase by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft or Oracle would answer Kozlov's own test for when co-packaged optics turns real. Watch the repair data too. Celestica's field-replaceable lasers exist to prove the technology survives ordinary maintenance, past a trade show floor.
Sources
- Broadcom, "Broadcom Redefines AI Infrastructure with Industry-Leading Networking Innovations at 2026 OCP Global Summit," GlobeNewswire, Oct. 8, 2026, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/10/08/3377533/19933/en/broadcom-redefines-ai-infrastructure-with-industry-leading-networking-innovations-at-2026-ocp-global-summit.html
- Celestica, "Celestica Introduces the DS6005 Data Center Switch with Co-Packaged Optics to Enable Power-Efficient AI Fabrics," GlobeNewswire, Oct. 12, 2026, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/10/12/3378829/0/en/celestica-introduces-the-ds6005-data-center-switch-with-co-packaged-optics-to-enable-power-efficient-ai-fabrics.html
- Open Compute Project Foundation, "2026 OCP Global Summit," Open Compute Project, Oct. 12, 2026, https://www.opencompute.org/events/ocp-summit/2026-ocp-global-summit/
- Vladimir Kozlov, "January 2026 – CPO Waiting for Green Light from Customers," LightCounting, Jan. 27, 2026, https://www.lightcounting.com/research-note/january-2026-cpo-waiting-for-green-light-from-customers-439
- Dell'Oro Group, "Sameh Boujelbene," Dell'Oro Group, accessed Oct. 21, 2026, https://www.delloro.com/about/meet-the-team/sameh-boujelbene/