PCI-SIG Reveals PCIe 7.0 Specifications, Launch Expected By 2025

PCI-SIG, the organization behind PCIe standards, has unveiled the next-generation PCIe (Express) 7.0 specifications, setting a new era in the industry.

[Press Release]: Progress continues on the PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification, which PCI SIG announced at US DevCon in June 2022. Thanks to the hard work of our technical work groups, we are pleased to announce that version 0.5 is now available for member review. This is the official first draft of the specification, incorporating all the feedback we received from members after the release of Version 0.3 in June 2023.

With this release, the PCIe 7.0 specification remains on track for full release in 2025. The PCIe 7.0 specification includes the following feature goals:

PCIe 7.0 technology aims to be a scalable interconnect solution for data-intensive markets like 800G Ethernet, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Hyperscale Data Centers, HPC, Quantum Computing, and the Cloud. As PCIe technology continues to evolve to meet the high bandwidth demands of these applications, the PCIe 7.0 architecture will focus on channel parameters and reach while improving power efficiency.

[Journalist Note]: While it's great to see PCIe 7.0 finally surfacing after almost a year from initial announcement, it is important to note that we shouldn't anticipate market adoption just yet, as GPU manufacturers haven't even wholly transitioned to PCIe Gen 5, while the storage industry looks to set its step into PCIe 6.0, given that they do see the viability. While PCI-SG hasn't mentioned when the newer standard could hit the markets, a ballpark guess would be somewhere in 2026 or 2027, but that isn't certain given that, right now, the standard's launch is scheduled by 2025.