GoKawiilThe USB ecosystem is in the midst of another transition that will affect how laptops, desktops, storage devices, displays, and peripherals connect in the second half of the decade.
USB4 Version 2.0, Thunderbolt 5, and a refreshed certification program converge around higher throughput, expanded power delivery, and an attempt to simplify a standard that has accumulated layers of optionality over nearly three decades, which we've explained in our USB decoded explainer.
So, what's next? In 2026, USB4 Version 2.0 and Thunderbolt 5 are now actively being implemented in the premium laptop and desktop segments, shifting from the long-running 20 Gbps and 40 Gbps era toward links that can deliver 80 Gbps bidirectional bandwidth and 120 Gbps asymmetric modes for display-heavy workloads.
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From 12 Mbps to 80 Gbps
USB began in the mid-1990s to replace a sprawl of legacy connectors — serial, parallel, PS/2 — with a single, self-configuring interface. USB 1.0 launched in 1996 at just 12 Mbps, fast enough for keyboards, mice, and early webcams.
The 2000 release of USB 2.0 raised that to 480 Mbps, enabling external optical drives and the first wave of consumer flash storage. But it was USB 3.0 in 2008 that marked the transition to high-bandwidth, general-purpose peripheral buses, pushing 5 Gbps over a new SuperSpeed signaling layer. USB 3.1 and 3.2 followed, expanding bandwidth to 10 Gbps and then 20 Gbps with dual-lane signaling, but also introducing a tangle of naming conventions that made it difficult for users to identify what a port or cable could actually do.
Throughout this evolution, USB retained backward compatibility by design. A USB 2.0 flash drive could still work when plugged into a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port, and a modern USB-C charger could power an old USB 3.0 hard drive. This interoperability helped USB become the default connector for consumer computing. That said, it also left the standard fragmented beneath the surface. Features such as power delivery, alternate modes for video output, and PCIe tunneling were added incrementally, and not all devices implemented them uniformly.
The introduction of USB-C in 2014 began to consolidate physical connectors, and the debut of USB4 in 2019 marked the start of a new architecture focused on integrated high-speed transport. But many of USB4’s promises, such as 40 Gbps throughput and universal power, depended on how thoroughly a given device implemented the spec. That complexity is still being worked through, even as USB4 v2 and Thunderbolt 5 push bandwidth and capability well beyond what USB 3.x ever attempted.
The state of USB4
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