[lancewiggs]

The short answer is yes. (1)

Optical saves a heck of a lot of power, and is obviously much faster than copper, so that's the way it's all going.

The longer answer requires reliable and appropriately sized/cost transceivers to get the data back to electrical to match the speed of the optical, and those are going to be a while coming, and this tech is still in the lab.

At the top end subsea cables have very high cost and traditionally bulky transceivers, and it's all about data volume, not switching.

At the other end of the scale is inside the data centre, where most switching needs to occur, there is a move towards optical interconnections and co-packaged switches. (1 and 2)

1: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-... 2: https://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/architecture-and-tech...