Taara launches silicon photonics wireless platform
Taara has unveiled a new silicon photonics-based wireless communication platform, introducing Taara Photonics alongside its first product, Taara Beam, marking a significant step toward scalable optical wireless infrastructure.
Developed at X, The Moonshot Factory, the platform shifts high-speed wireless optical communication from mechanically steered systems to solid-state photonic integration.
The technology uses optical phased arrays integrated into a semiconductor chip to electronically control and steer beams of light, enabling rapid deployment and scalable network expansion.
Taara Beam, the first system built on the new photonic core, delivers connectivity speeds of up to 25 Gbps across distances of up to 10 km. Designed for telecom operators, enterprises, and data infrastructure providers, the system aims to provide fibre-like performance in locations where deploying physical fibre networks remains costly or impractical.
Traditional free-space optical communication systems rely on mirrors and mechanical tracking components.
Taara’s approach replaces these with an integrated photonic module containing more than a thousand miniature emitters arranged in an optical phased array, allowing precise beam steering while reducing system size and mechanical complexity.
According to the company, silicon photonics integration enables continued improvements in performance, cost, and scalability, following development trends similar to semiconductor manufacturing platforms.
Taara’s earlier Lightbridge systems are already deployed across more than 20 countries with network operators including Airtel, Digicel, T-Mobile, SoftBank, and Liquid.
The newly introduced Beam platform targets dense urban networks, enterprise campuses, data centre interconnects, and temporary high-capacity deployments such as event venues.
Operating within the unlicensed optical spectrum, the system avoids radio spectrum congestion while supporting high-throughput, low-latency links suitable for emerging AI-driven and real-time networking applications.
The announcement highlights the growing role of integrated photonics in next-generation connectivity infrastructure, extending photonic integrated circuit technologies beyond traditional fibre-based communications into wireless optical networking.
