Abstract: The rapid expansion of AI infrastructures is fundamentally reshaping optical networks, driving demand for higher capacity, wider spectral utilization, and more adaptive, application-aware architectures. At the same time, AI is increasingly integrated into optical systems to enable intelligent control, optimization, and automation. This workshop explores these dual trends from both technological and methodological perspectives. The first part focuses on emerging optical system directions, including ultra-wideband transmission and AI-assisted infrastructure. The second part addresses the need for fair and reproducible benchmarking methodologies across diverse optical networking approaches, emphasizing AI-driven workloads, evaluation metrics, and comparability.
Abstract:
Next-generation AI computing will be shaped by advances in processors, accelerators, and communication infrastructures that interconnect them. As AI systems scale, performance, scalability, and energy efficiency of computing and switching fabrics become key constraints, exposing the limits of conventional electrical technologies in bandwidth, latency, and power. Emerging photonic solutions, such as optical circuit switching, coherent and co-packaged optics, and linear photonic computing, offer promising alternatives by reducing data movement costs and enabling high-capacity, scalable architectures. This workshop examines these developments, focusing on trade-offs between electrical and optical approaches, energy efficiency (pJ/bit), novel network topologies, and geo-distributed strategies for sustainable AI infrastructure.
Abstract:
Can integrated photonics truly enable quantum‑enhanced data centers?
As quantum and classical systems move toward tighter integration, data‑center‑scale environments may represent one of the first realistic settings for deploying quantum communication technologies, avoiding many of the challenges of long‑distance networks.
This workshop explores whether integrated photonics can effectively bridge these domains at scale, addressing key challenges in switching, control, coexistence, and system integration. It covers technologies such as QKD and hybrid photonic platforms, and examines their role in emerging data‑center‑scale architectures.
Bringing together leading experts across devices, networks, and systems, the workshop will assess both the potential and the limitations, and identify realistic pathways beyond today’s experimental demonstrations.
