POET and Lumilens partner on AI photonics
Companies target next-generation AI data centres with wafer-scale photonic modules designed to replace copper interconnects.
POET Technologies and Lumilens have announced a joint development and supply agreement focused on optical interconnect technologies for AI data centres.
The collaboration includes an initial $50m purchase order for optical engines built on POET’s Electrical-Optical Interposer platform, with the broader agreement potentially scaling beyond $500m over five years.
The companies will co-develop wafer-scale photonic modules designed to replace conventional copper interconnects with optical links capable of supporting higher bandwidth density and lower power consumption in large-scale AI systems.
The platform combines POET’s alignment-free wafer-scale manufacturing technology with Lumilens’ silicon photonics chipsets and mixed-signal integration capabilities.
Development efforts will include 800G and 1.6T pluggable transceivers, near-package optics and co-packaged optics architectures targeting next-generation GPU cluster deployments.
The companies said increasing AI infrastructure demands are accelerating the shift toward optical interconnect technologies as copper-based systems face growing bandwidth and thermal limitations at higher data rates.
