Pilot Photonics partners with Finchetto on optical switching
Nanosecond tunable lasers to power next-generation passive optical network switches for AI and data centres.
Pilot Photonics has announced a partnership with Finchetto to supply its nanosecond tunable laser technology for use in next-generation optical network switching aimed at AI and data centre applications.
Finchetto is developing what it describes as the world’s first fully optical passive network switch, designed to significantly reduce power consumption and latency while improving throughput in large-scale data networks.
The integration of Pilot Photonics’ fast-switching tunable lasers is expected to play a critical role in enabling packet-level optical switching within the system.
“The tunable laser is critical to switching at the packet level, and until now, we haven’t been able to find a faster laser on the market,” said Mark Rushworth. “The implementation of Pilot’s technology is an important step towards delivering our fully optical and passive network switching.”
The companies have already demonstrated the feasibility of the approach using Pilot’s lasers and are now working to integrate the technology into Finchetto’s next generation of demonstrator systems. Both teams are collaborating closely to optimise performance and scalability.
“Our laser capabilities, coupled with Finchetto’s exciting roadmap for fully optical passive network switching, make for a great match,” said Frank Smyth. “We’re delighted to be working together on this project.”
The collaboration reflects growing industry efforts to address the increasing bandwidth and energy efficiency demands driven by AI workloads and cloud infrastructure expansion, with optical switching emerging as a key area of innovation.
