ECOC 2025: industry reflections

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts after attending ECOC 2025 in Copenhagen. Here are the first contributions from LightWave Logic's Yves LeMaitre, Maxim Kuschnerov of Huawei, and LightCounting's Daryl Inniss.

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

Yves LeMaitre, CEO of LightWave Logic

The optical centre of gravity has shifted towards AI networking; everything else is becoming an afterthought. Even data centre interconnect/ ZR coherent optics, a major topic at OFC2025, is relegated to a secondary topic.

The achievement of 400G/lane is happening faster than everyone thought. The race to chiplets, co-packaged optics, integration and the co-packaging of Electronic and photonic ICs (EICs/PICs) is what will define the winners of tomorrow. Winning in the transceiver world might feed you today, but you'd better adjust quickly to the new AI world order.

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Fueling the AI Revolution: Silicon Photonics Book 2.0

How is silicon photonics powering the AI revolution and benefitting industries from autonomous vehicles to healthcare? A new edition of the book, Silicon Photonics: Fueling the Information Revolution will reveal the answers.

A decade ago, the editor of Gazettabyte and Daryl Inniss, now Principal Market Analyst at LightCounting Market Research, wrote the book: Silicon Photonics: Fueling the Information Revolution, published by Morgan Kaufmann, part of Elsevier.

We are delighted to report that we have agreed with the publisher to proceed with a second edition.

Many of the arguments about how silicon photonics would develop, as made in the first book, have come to pass. But much has also changed, AI’s phenomenal rise and the emergence of massive AI computing clusters that work only because of photonics enabling their vast networking needs. 

While AI will be the primary driver of silicon photonics in the coming years, the book will touch on emerging non-datacom/telecoms applications for silicon photonics such as Lidar and biosensors.

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Ciena becomes a computer weaver

• Ciena is to buy optical interconnect start-up Nubis Communications for $270 million.
• The deal covers optical and copper interconnect technology for data centres

Ciena has announced its intention to buy optical engine specialist Nubis Communications for $270 million. If the network is the computer, Nubis' optical engine and copper integrated circuit (IC) expertise will help Ciena better stitch together AI's massive compute fabric.

Source: Ciena

Ciena signalled its intention to target the data centre earlier this year at the OFC show when it showcased its high-speed 448-gigabit serialiser-deserialiser IC technology and coherent lite modem. Now, Ciena has made a move for start-up Nubis, which plays at the core of AI data centres.

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From spin-out to scale-up: OpenLight’s $34M funding

Part 1: Start-up funding

OpenLight Photonics, a Santa Barbara-based start-up specialising in silicon photonics, has raised $34 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round.

The start-up will use the funding to expand production and its photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design staff.

“We’re starting to get customers taking in production mask sets, so it’s about scaling operations and how we handle production,” says OpenLight CEO, Adam Carter (pictured). The start-up needs more PIC designers to work with customers.

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Paying homage to Harald Bock

Harald Bock, described by an optical networking executive as one of the great people of our industry, has died. Former colleagues describe the man and their sense of loss

Harald Bock

Those who knew and worked with Harald Bock have been stunned by his sudden passing at 55. For them, Harald was a valued and much-admired friend, a deep thinker who made his views heard, quietly yet powerfully.

Last February, Harald changed jobs, becoming chief product officer at Ekinops after six years at Infinera. He was excited by the role and enjoyed his introductory period travelling to Ekinops' sites, meeting colleagues and customers, and working on the company’s strategy.

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IOWN’s all-photonic network vision

What is the best way to send large amounts of data between locations? Its a question made all the more relevant with the advent of AI, and one that has been preoccupying the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) Global Forum that has now over 160 member companies and organisations

Masahisa KawashimaOptical networking has long established itself as the high-speed communications technology of choice for linking data centres or large enterprises’ sites.

The IOWN Global Forum aims to take optical networking a step further by enabling an all-optical network, to reduce the energy consumption and latency of communication links. Latency refers to the time it takes transmitted data to start arriving at the receiver site.

"The IOWN all-photonic network is the infrastructure for future enterprise networking," says Masahisa Kawashima, IOWN technology director, IOWN development office, NTT Technology working group chair, IOWN Global Forum.

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Glenn Wellbrock’s engineering roots

After four decades shaping optical networking, Glenn Wellbrock has retired. He shares his career highlights, industry insights, and his plans to embrace a quieter life of farming and hands-on projects in rural Kansas.

Glenn Wellbrock’s (pictured) fascination with telecommunications began at an early age. “I didn’t understand how it worked, and I wanted to know,” he recalls.

Wellbrock’s uncle had a small, rural telephone company where he worked while studying, setting the stage for his first full-time job at telecom operator, MCI. Wellbrock entered a world of microwave and satellite systems; MCI was originally named Microwave Communications Incorporated.

“They were all ex-military guys, and I’m the rookie coming out of school trying to do my best and learn,” says Wellbrock.

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