Just some theories, but I suspect a lot of the enabling probably came from: A. The work on USB3 to allow more complex negotiation for power, voltage, etc. B.

Just some theories, but I suspect a lot of the enabling probably came from: A. The work on USB3 to allow more complex negotiation for power, voltage, etc. B. More experience with managing radio frequency interference as USB gets used in the real world. For example: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/universal-serial-bus/usb3-frequency-interference-paper.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/uni... C. 40Gb networking in datacenters. E.g., more chip design teams have confidence building line drivers, receivers, and error recovery circuits to work at these rates. D. Supply. Never underestimate the power of "Well now that we've paid to build the experienced team, what're we doing for 2.0?" E. Demand. A critical mass of consumers have type-C connectors now and are using it for things like docking stations.