Special Programs

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a major driver of optical-network evolution. Access networks are expected not only to benefit from AI-enabled automation, optimization, and intelligence, but also to support emerging AI-driven services, as reflected in initiatives such as ITU-T ION-2030...

Silicon photonics enters a golden era for datacom applications considering its high integrability, versatility and reliability. As AI data centers spearhead to 200GBd/lane, exploring the possibility of making Silicon Photonics reach 200GBd is of great interest. As other materials, such as TFLN...

Photonics is being pursued across three distinct computing paradigms: classical unconventional (Ising machines, photonic neural networks), quantum-inspired (coherent Ising machines, variational circuits), and genuinely quantum (photonic qubits, boson sampling); yet these communities rarely...

This panel addresses the critical challenges to make co-packaged optics (CPO) a truly mass-manufacturable technology. With significant progress at prototype and early deployment levels, the focus has shifted to interdependent scaling issues across optics, electronics, packaging, testing, and...

This industrial panel addresses the increasingly urgent challenge of scaling network capacity to meet the explosive bandwidth demands of AI-driven traffic and 6G services. While the path toward higher data rates remains clear, the panel moves beyond theoretical limits to focus on the practical...

This panel session will bring together the latest advances in optical microwave frequency synthesis and the current application demands and opportunities. Progress has been made in realizing commercially available optical frequency combs and high-Q resonator based optical technologies to meet...

Each PON generation has added interoperability challenges, from G-PON through 50G-PON and the emerging VHSP, which all share the same point-to-multipoint outside plant. This raises physical-layer questions of coexistence, wavelength band allocation, filtering, and power budget. At the protocol...

This panel revisits optical and electrical co-design for transceivers exceeding 400 Gb/s, focusing on the implications of integration strategies such as hybrid, heterogeneous, and monolithic approaches. It will compare trade-offs in performance, thermal management, signal integrity...

Edge continuum computing is emerging as a key paradigm to support ultra low latency, high bandwidth, and context aware services by seamlessly integrating cloud, edge, and far edge resources. In this context, optical networks play a fundamental role in providing scalable, high capacity, and energy...

As the scale and complexity of modern infrastructures and systems grow, so does the demand for sensing technologies that can deliver higher spatial resolution, longer reach, faster response, and cost-effective deployment. This panel will examine how emerging fiber technologies and sensing...

Anti-resonant hollow-core fiber (AR-HCF) is moving rapidly from specialized use within select organizations towards broader deployment, supported by a growing range of field trials and initial commercial applications. However, substantial technical, operational, economic, and ecosystem-related...

As subsea capacity nears a 4Pb/s saturation point, the industry must choose between continued scaling via Multi-Core Fiber (MCF) and massive parallel architectures or pivoting to a new model. This workshop debates the potential of pluggable transceivers and Hollow Core Fiber (HCF) to reshape...