Using HDMI port as network protocol interface?

I was wondering if it's possible to use the 10.2 Gb/s HDMI port on several computers as a backbone networking interface for a home made cluster?

Is there some kind of HDMI switch? Can HDMI transport arbitrary data? Can you access the HDMI port in *nix as a device like eth0 and pipe to it? Can the HDMI port on the computers receieve data, or is it outgoing only (graphics card -> display)?

This would be very cool.

If it doesn't exist, what would be the logistics of implementing this?

Edit) Reddit discussion, http://redd.it/1lnzyi

Solution 1:

HDMI has multiple channels carrying various kinds of data (video, audo, control, etc)

As Ignacio commented - HDMI 1.4 does have Ethernet (HEC) on pins 14 & 19 - you could use this.

HDMI 1.4 does have reverse audio channels (ARC) so that (for example) a TV can return a sound signal to an external audio amplifier. I suspect throughput may be relatively low.

It does have a CEC channel for bidirectional command communication but this is relatively low speed.

I believe the video portion of the TMDS channels is not bidirectional and so cannot be used to receive data.