APC says let there be light, with standards to speed up photonics manufacturing

AI’s expanding need for bandwidth is pushing data-center networks beyond copper, whose useful reach shrinks as speeds rise and which brings power and heat costs. Optical networking promises more bandwidth with greater efficiency, but manufacturers are struggling to scale: Lumentum says its indium phosphide components, essential to photonics, are sold out through 2029, with supply also exposed to geopolitical risks because China is a major producer. The Advanced Photonics Coalition has approved a set of standards intended to enable high-volume production and reduce the risk that shortages and inconsistent designs constrain adoption. Its specifications cover co-packaged optics architecture and practices, silicon-photonics testing and manufacturing, and multicore fiber, connectors, and fiber-array units.

The coalition argues that common manufacturing, interface, and testing methods can remove needless variations, broaden supplier participation, and make the ecosystem more scalable. Open standards are also presented as a way to prevent proprietary, vertically integrated systems from fragmenting the market, locking in customers, and slowing innovation. Resolight, a working-group participant, sees the standards as supporting nanosecond optical circuit switching, which routes data in the optical domain rather than repeatedly converting it between light and electricity. The company says this could lower network energy use and reduce the number of transceivers needed in AI clusters, easing demand for scarce components such as indium phosphide. The standards do not prescribe one fast-switching technology; they define shared control, interface, and behavior requirements so optical switching can work as an open part of AI networks.