Inside data centres, machines constantly exchange data, and demanding workloads have pushed that internal traffic sharply higher. Networking equipment has moved to far higher capacity links so information can flow between servers and switches without becoming a bottleneck.
Faster links let large tasks spread across many machines run smoothly, which matters as computing jobs grow. Pushing more data through each connection raises challenges in power use and heat, driving interest in carrying signals with light rather than electricity over short hops. The upgrades are invisible to users but underpin the responsiveness of the services they rely on.