It’s the protocols more than anything.

stuff with this speeds existed already, it just wasn’t via USB. it was expensive proprietary protocols and hardware and cables. USB is an open standard design for consumer use, and not for giant corps with datacenters who can pay $2,000 for a single data cable.

Thunderbolt is basically a data-transfer focused version of USB, and just requires a different controller that supports the new protocols to achieve the higher speeds.

multiplexing is one way to achieve higher bandwidth and throughput over the same physical cable.

From what I recall, the big change is in the signal encoding. It’s switching from PAM2 to 3, which will allow a lot more data to move down the line without having to totally rethink the cables and connectors. Although you will need new cables for this.

We made breakthroughs in recent yeara at harvesting alien technology from the crashed Roswell ships, leading to all of these “AI chips” and crazy speeds