It is somewhat possible but there's rumors that Intel intentionally nerfs the speed so as not to compete with their datacenter products. It could also just be some other resource limit in the hardware, you usually aren't saturating a thunderbolt connection with just one type of data stream. This guy built a small ring topology network using mini PCs and thunderbolt 4.
The distance isn't great for USB/Thunderbolt 4 cables so it would really only make sense for cluster computing and since no switches exist for this kind of thing, you're limited in network topology. Generally, the kind of PCs that you'd need a fat pipe connected to already have the slots and lanes available for 40G or 100G cards. It's a cool experiment for the homelab but it's clear the industry isn't interested.
im not sure about intel limiting. a lot of times people forget to calculate encoding and/or packet headers into raw speeds. or something like that.
or in that article it is possible usb4 controller is sharing bandwidth with some other device or it is only 20gbps PER controller and he has connected 2 cables to same computer in middle. so 10 IN + 10 OUT is 20gbps ? maybe if he tries to measure speeds for only neighboring machines it would be 20gbps ? but his speed is 11.8 so does not make sense either. i do not know.
i was thinking for home use, when i come home with notebook i can quickly sync it to nas. both have NVME drives so 3-4 GBps should be possible. especially video. also not needing wifi, because im connected thru same cable im charging is awesome.
also recovery/ssd cloning is nicer on quick connection.
virtual machines can stay on nas too with those speeds. no need to copy.
https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2024/01/14/high-speed-usb4-mesh...
The distance isn't great for USB/Thunderbolt 4 cables so it would really only make sense for cluster computing and since no switches exist for this kind of thing, you're limited in network topology. Generally, the kind of PCs that you'd need a fat pipe connected to already have the slots and lanes available for 40G or 100G cards. It's a cool experiment for the homelab but it's clear the industry isn't interested.