The wired standard for data transfer may have leapt light years forward at CES, where Intel revealed additional development of its Light Peak technology during a Thursday keynote.  The new high-speed optical cable technology was initially revealed in San Francisco at September’s Intel Developer Forum.

According to Intel, “Light Peak is the code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect your electronic devices to each other. Light Peak delivers high bandwidth starting at 10Gb/s with the potential ability to scale to 100Gb/s over the next decade. At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds. Optical technology also allows for smaller connectors and longer, thinner, and more flexible cables than currently possible. Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect devices such as peripherals, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more.”

The demo we saw at CES featured two HD movies streaming simultaneously through the same wire.  “Right now there are many wires connecting each device,” explained Robert Siegle, a member of Intel’s Optical IO team.  “The idea is that this one wire will replace the many.”

Standardization is taking place now, with industry protocols and products expected to roll out from 2012 to 2013.  There are two issues – copper reaching its practical limits and an increase in the number of devices people want to attach to their computers, Siegel told us.

Though the prototype device on display at the Intel booth involved running Light Peak through a PCI connection, it will more likely be integrated directly onto motherboards (though that will all play out as part of the standardization process).

As you saw from our post about HDBaseT and this one, the game is definitely on for the next generation of high-bandwidth, easy-connect wiring.