Intel today introduced the next generation of Thunderbolt, which will provide ultra-fast data transfer speeds and increase support for external displays on future Macs, which will include the standard when released in 2023 or later.

Next-generation Thunderbolt will deliver up to 80Gbps of bandwidth in each direction, providing up to 2x faster data transfer speeds between future Macs and external drives that support the standard compared to current speeds. The next-gen Thunderbolt will also have a mode that provides up to 120 Gbps of bandwidth for external displays, allowing Macs to support up to two 8K displays at 60 Hz.

The latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models feature Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports with up to 40 Gbps throughput in each direction. Currently, no Mac supports plug-and-play 8K displays. The latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models support up to two or three external displays at 6K@60Hz, depending on whether the notebook is configured with the M1 Pro or M1 Max chip.

The next generation Thunderbolt is based on the newly released USB4 version 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 specifications and is backwards compatible with previous versions of Thunderbolt, USB and DisplayPort. Intel plans to share more details about the official name, features and capabilities of the next generation Thunderbolt in 2023.