What is the GPMI cable, and is it truly the end for HDMI?

In recent weeks, you may have heard of a new cable type called GPMI that could give HDMI and other common standards, like USB and Thunderbolt, a run for their money. But despite the early hype, chances are you don’t need to worry about GPMI yet.

The General Purpose Media Interface (GPMI) connector and cable are a new standard created by the Shenzhen International 8K Ultra High Definition Video Industry Collaboration Alliance (SUCA), a group of major China-based tech brands like TCL, Hisense, and Huawei. The new standard offers significantly more bandwidth than current standards like HDMI, as well as power delivery and other features.

GPMI will come in two variants, a ‘Type-C’ version that uses the same connector as USB Type-C, and a proprietary ‘Type-B’ connector with more impressive technical specs.

The GPMI Type-C connector boasts a 96Gbps transfer rate, which is on par with HDMI 2.2 announced earlier this year, along with up to 240W power delivery, roughly on par with topline USB4 connectors. It’ll also work with existing USB-C ports, which is great for compatibility.

However, the Type-B connector is a lot more interesting. It is proprietary, which means it won’t work with existing ports, but the specs are very impressive. GPMI Type-B boasts total bandwidth up to 192Gbps, double what HDMI 2.2 can handle and more than double DisplayPort 2.1, USB4 and Thunderbolt 5.

Additionally, GPMI was designed to include several features across both forms of the connector, features that alleviate some issues with HDMI and other current standards. These features include two-way, multi-stream data, bidirectional control, power delivery, USB ecosystem compatibility, and more.

Better specs don’t mean an instant takeover

On paper, this all sounds really great and pretty exciting — at least, as exciting as new cable formats can be. (Understandably, only some folks get truly excited for this type of thing.) But before you get ready to ditch all your HDMI ports for GPMI, it’s worth noting GPMI isn’t widely available yet, and it faces an uphill battle before we see wide adoption.

Here’s the thing: HDMI is ubiquitous. It’s already on your TV, on your gaming console, on your PC. At this point, it’s basically the default option for connecting to a screen. That means that GPMI not only needs to be technically better than HDMI, it also needs to be everywhere to compete. And GPMI will need to offer a good reason to use it.

Unfortunately, pure technical superiority probably won’t compel most people to use GPMI. For example, HDMI 2.2 can handle 8K at over 120Hz and 4K up to 480Hz, and even up to 10K resolution. Although GPMI can go higher than that, thanks to having more bandwidth, higher doesn’t really exist for consumers yet.

At this point, most people have a 4K TV, but 8K remains fairly niche — forget anything beyond that. Most people simply don’t need the capabilities of GPMI, so it doesn’t matter that it’s technically better than HDMI. Of course, things could change, but so can standards. HDMI and USB will continue to evolve and will likely keep up.

The bigger issue will be getting GPMI onto the devices that people actually buy and use. The Chinese tech brands behind SUCA will likely put GPMI on their devices, but there’s no guarantee that other brands will. Samsung, Sony, and LG are all major players in the TV space, especially in North America, and they all use HDMI.

In the short term, that means you likely won’t need to worry about GPMI at all. It will likely be years before we see meaningful GPMI adoption, especially outside of China. And while it might never truly threaten existing standards, chances are it will spur improvements to HDMI and USB, benefiting everyone.