A Chinese alliance of companies, known as the Shenzhen 8K UHD Video Industry Cooperation Alliance, recently announced the General Purpose Media Interface, or GPMI. The interface looks like it is set to take on the current HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces.
On paper, GPMI boasts a whopping 192 Gbps of bandwidth delivery, making it an ideal standard for 8K transfers. Additionally, it’s can provide a 480W power delivery but what’s even more impressive is that the alliance are saying it’s compatible with the currently existing USB-C port design.
That said, the USB-C format is knocked down a peg, capable of delivering 96 Gbps bandwidth and up to 240W of power delivery. The proprietary connector, which the alliance is calling Type-B, will provide the full-fat 192 Gbps and 480W.
For context, GPMI has the same bandwidth as USB4 but double its data limit at 96 Gbps, and does so using Extended Power Range (EPR) via USB PD 3.1. Meanwhile, HDMI 2.1 only has a bandwidth of 48 Gbps with no power delivery, while Thunderbolt 4 does 40 Gbps and taps out at 100W PD.
The more important point of GPMI is that the interface is bidirectional, meaning that you can use it to transfer data. This would certainly be one of its key selling points; having the interface pulling double duty on both bandwidth and power delivery means that one could reduce the number of cables needed for both video and audio delivery. Off the top of our head, the interface could be beneficial for eGPUs.
It’s obvious as well that the GMPI is still in the development stage but that said, it shouldn’t be overlooked, considering that some of the Chinese companies responsible for its development include Huawei, HiSense, TCL and the Japanese company Sharp.
