Who makes copper: dac / acc / aec cables for AI data centers

Copper cabling connects the same points the optical transceivers of 3.04 do — GPUs to NICs, NICs to switches — but over shorter reaches, where it stays cheaper and lower-power than going optical. DAC is passive, ACC and AEC add active signal conditioning to extend reach, with AEC in particular depending on retimers (3.09a) to hit longer distances at high speed. Copper remains the default choice for the shortest, highest-bandwidth links in a rack, which keeps demand growing alongside optics rather than being displaced by it, even as the NVLink copper spine described in 3.10 approaches its practical reach limit at the highest speed grades. An investor should watch the mix between passive DAC and active ACC/AEC cabling as speeds rise, since active cables carry more semiconductor content (the retimers) and shift value toward cable assembly makers with in-house or partnered active-cable capability.