New HDMI standard coming soon with more bandwidth for higher resolutions and refresh rates

After releasing HDMI 2.1 seven years ago, the HDMI Forum is set to announce the next major iteration of its popular audio/video interface: HDMI 2.2.

As per the media invitations sent out by the HDMI Forum, the new HDMI standard will be announced on January 6 at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. While the official invite remains mum on the exact naming scheme, the new specification is widely expected to be HDMI 2.2. There’s no word on technical details either, but we’re promised that the latest specification “will enable a variety of higher resolutions and refresh rates and will be supported with a new HDMI cable.”

“The HDMI Forum will announce a new version of the HDMI specification. The new specification, featuring next-generation HDMI technology and higher bandwidth, will enable a variety of higher resolutions and refresh rates and will be supported with a new HDMI cable. New technologies are enabling higher quality options for content producers such as television, film and game studios now and in the future, while also enabling multiple distribution platforms,” reads HDMI organization's press invitation.

The current standard, HDMI 2.1b, offers a max bandwidth of 48Gbps and display resolutions up to 8K at 60Hz and 5K at 120Hz with compression. We won’t be surprised if HDMI 2.2 ends up matching or exceeding 80Gbps bandwidth offered by DisplayPort 2.1 while also enabling support for higher resolution and refresh rate combinations such as 8K at 120Hz, 10K at 60Hz, and so on. 

There’s speculation that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series and AMD’s Radeon RX 8000 GPUs might launch with HDMI 2.2 support. However, this has not been corroborated by leaks or reports so far, and it's unlikely that these new GPUs will come with the latest HDMI standard out-of-the-box.