Santa Clara, Calif., March 5, 2026, 11:53 (PST)
Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL.O) said on Thursday it has built a 1.6-terabit “pluggable” optical module and 2-nanometer coherent chips with built-in security, aiming at the fiber links that connect AI-heavy cloud data centers. The company plans to show the products at OFC 2026 in Los Angeles on March 15–19. Business Wire
The move lands as cloud operators add compute in chunks and then discover the hard part: shifting data fast between clusters, racks and sites. More AI work is spread out, and that pushes up traffic between data centers, not just inside them.
Pluggables are optical transceivers that slot into a router or switch, cutting out some separate transport gear. ZR and ZR+ refer to industry specifications for coherent optics used for data-center interconnects, while a coherent DSP is the chip that does the heavy signal processing to move bits reliably over fiber. MACsec, short for media access control security, is a link-layer method used to encrypt Ethernet traffic.
“Meeting the global needs of AI-driven data centers requires proven, large-scale manufacturing strength,” said Russ Esmacher, senior vice president and general manager for data center interconnect at Marvell. Scott Wilkinson, lead analyst at Cignal AI, said: “Maintaining leadership requires power efficiency, critical features and high-volume manufacturability.” Marvell Technology, Inc.
Marvell said its COLORZ 1600 module is powered by an Electra coherent DSP built on a 2-nm process, while a Libra DSP will support an updated COLORZ 800 pluggable. The company expects to begin sampling Electra, Libra and the corresponding COLORZ modules in the second half of 2026.
Marvell shares were down about 2.5% at $76.12 in late morning trading, valuing the company at roughly $80.8 billion.
The coherent-pluggable field is crowded, with rivals including Cisco Systems’ Acacia unit, which sells 800G ZR/ZR+ coherent optics designed to push 800G from a router or switch port over data-center links. That puts pressure on vendors to keep lifting speeds while trimming power draw.
Marvell sells data infrastructure semiconductors across the data center and network edge, spanning networking, storage and carrier markets, according to its company profile. Matthew Murphy is its chief executive.
Investors will turn to earnings later on Thursday, when Marvell is due to hold a conference call at 4:45 p.m. ET to discuss its latest results. The company’s commentary on AI-driven networking demand will likely matter as much as the numbers.
But the new optics and chips are not expected to start reaching customers for sampling until the back half of the year, and ramps at leading-edge nodes can slip. If cloud buyers delay upgrades, or lean harder on competing modules and in-house designs, the pricing and volume story could look different by the time the parts are ready.
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