EVENT FOCUS ECOC2025 MARKET FOCUS
Now in its 19th year, the Market Focus theatre remains one of the ECOC Exhibition’s premier attractions, drawing top industry voices from across the globe. Recognised as the go-to stage for the latest insights in optical communications, the Market Focus delivers a unique blend of technical depth and commercial perspective. ECOC 2025 MARKET FOCUS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF OPTICAL NETWORKING IN THE AI ERA
Datacom modulator development approaching crossroads Mark Lutkowitz, fibeReality, LLC Modulators make up the foundation of the communication channel as links with SerDes require faster devices each generation. Yet, there is advocacy by some engineers in the optics industry for maintaining 200G, while moving to wider radix switches. Complicating the outlook is that beyond 400G per lane is a total mystery. There will be the following six areas of discussion: 1) hyperscaler and vendor strategies; 2) general trend of balancing scale-up/scale-out; 3) implications for incumbent and novel materials; 4) dilemma of modulator-only plays with new platforms; 5) paradigm shift to customised hybrid PICs; and 6) impact of hollow core fibres. Advanced optical solutions for AI data centres Rang-Chen Yu, Terahop This talk will discuss state of the art, and evolution of energy efficient optical solutions supporting large AI data centres (DC), with scale up to scale out networks, and increasingly multiple AI DC buildings interconnected by massive numbers of optical fibre connections. The solution set includes low power “scale up” optics, high speed optics for “scale out” within data centre and long reach optics interconnecting multiple DC buildings. Advances in optical components, transceivers, and co-packaged optics Julie Eng, Coherent Corp This talk will review advances in components such as VCSELs, EMLs, and Silicon Photonics, as well as transceivers and co-packaged optics for data centre applications. In addition, advances in components, transceivers, and transport products for telecommunications applications will be presented.
Challenges for optical connectivity solutions in data centres Dirk Lutz, Eoptolink In recent years, the capacity of optical connectivity in data centres has been increased by doubling line rates, adding more lanes, expanding the number of ports, and adopting more advanced modulation techniques. This talk will explore the challenges the industry faces in pushing these approaches further. Scaling AI with confidence: FEC and reliability for 448G/lane interfaces
For 2025, the programme reflects the industry’s hottest topics – from the impact of Generative AI and surging hyperscaler investments, to the push for faster, more energy-efficient photonics and electronics. Each session is designed to explore the technologies, trends, and strategies shaping the future of optical networking. Here’s some of the sessions we think you won’t want to miss: Optics in the age of AI: Where do we go from here? Scott Wilkinson, Cignal AI The explosion of demand from AI has driven optical vendors to expand capacity, increase speeds, and innovate at an unprecedented pace. Operators want the fastest optical rates at the lowest power and are looking for new solutions that can enable ever larger AI clusters. As speeds continue to grow, what will be the impact of LPO, CPO, and optical switching inside the network and 800ZR, 1600ZR, and coherent lite outside the network? The speaker will cover the AI impact on the datacom and telecom markets and forecast where we can expect to go over the next five years. Outlook for Coherent Lite technologies and markets Bo Zhang, Marvell Coherent Lite technologies are reshaping short-reach optical interconnects by balancing performance, power, and cost. As data centre and AI workloads scale, demand is shifting toward pluggable, power-efficient coherent solutions for <120 km links. This talk explores the evolving Coherent Lite ecosystem— covering DSP innovation, optics integration, and deployment trends—and provides a market outlook driven by hyperscaler adoption and standardization efforts.
Xiang He, Huawei Technologies As AI workloads push data centre
interconnects to 448G/lane and beyond, link reliability becomes critical. This talk examines how Forward Error Correction (FEC) enables bit error rate (BER) relaxation to support these ultra-high- speed links. We’ll explore candidate FEC schemes, coding gains, and the role of link-layer retry in achieving system- level reliability. Emphasis is placed on how PHY-layer error correction affects AI performance, particularly in terms of latency and throughput. This talk links FEC design to AI system behaviour, highlighting the need for cross-layer reliability strategies in the next generation of optical data centre networks. Powering AI: Exploring modulation strategies for 448G electrical interconnects Naim Ben-Hamida, Ciena The topic of 448Gbps per lane speeds for data centre networking has become one of the hottest discussions in the industry driven by the relentless push of Artificial Intelligence. Modulation format is one of the foundational decisions that needs to be made in order to advance this new technology. Current experimental data
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ISSUE 42 | Q3 2025
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