At 1.6T I'm both the enabler and the power problem — deciding whether 200G/lane links hit targets inside strict thermal budgets. Higher lane speeds mean more loss, more noise, heavier error correction, and I have to recover signal while sipping power. Independent research ranks this layer among the highest-conviction bottlenecks in the AI optical supply chain, partly because the semiconductor layer tends to capture more value than module assembly — an analytical judgment, not a filed number.