The integrated photonics industry stands at a critical juncture, with experts emphasizing the need for rapid industrialization to keep pace with global competitors. The intersection of photonics and AI redefines the landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities in sectors like healthcare, datacom, automotive, and agritech. However, to seize this potential, the industry must act swiftly and embrace collaboration, standardization, and innovation.
At the PIC Summit in Eindhoven, industry and academic leaders shared their vision for the future of photonics and stressed the importance of taking decisive steps toward industrialization. “We have solved many challenges in the last 10 to 15 years, but now it’s time to deliver, deliver, deliver,” a participant added.
The push for urgency and industrialization
Eelko Brinkhoff, CEO of PhotonDelta, highlighted the sense of urgency within the photonics ecosystem. “We need to go faster to the market with our technology and start making money,” he said, emphasizing that Europe is falling behind the U.S. and Asia in competitiveness. Brinkhoff stressed that while Europe has strong research foundations and a growing number of startups, the industry must accelerate its journey from innovation to commercialization. “The glass is still half full, but we need to move forward.”
PhotonDelta unveiled a new initiative to encourage much-needed talent into the integrated photonics industry. A new jobs board, information portal, and online campaign aim to promote opportunities within the sector and help it reach its potential. This follows PhotonDelta’s announcement of a new €50,000 Global Photonic Engineering Contest to find photonic chip applications that tackle global challenges.
Tjerk Opmeer, from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, echoed Brinkhoff’s sentiment, stating that the integration of photonics with AI and other technologies is essential for Europe’s competitiveness. “We can’t afford to sit still,” he warned. Opmeer pointed to the substantial investments from the PhotonDelta program and the European Union’s Chips Act, which aims to secure Europe’s supply chain and drive photonics toward industrialization. “This will be a major step towards establishing a strong supply chain in the EU,” he noted.
AI as a catalyst for photonics
The rapid adoption of AI is a game-changer for integrated photonics. As Paraskevas Bakapoulos from Nvidia highlighted, “AI is bringing about the next Industrial Revolution, manufacturing intelligence at an unprecedented scale.” Photonics plays a critical role in this transformation by addressing bandwidth bottlenecks in AI systems, even as it pushes the boundaries of traditional microelectronics. “We are starting to see the lines between optics and electronics blur, which opens up new possibilities,” Bakapoulos added.
Photonics is poised to revolutionize industries such as healthcare, automotive, and agritech, where high-performance computing and energy-efficient data transmission are crucial. As Opmeer noted, “Integrated photonics can greatly contribute to reducing energy consumption in data centers and enabling advancements like biosensing in healthcare and quantum computing.”
Collaboration and Standardization as the Way Forward
Gustav Kalbe from the European Commission underscored the importance of collaboration across the value chain to ensure the successful industrialization of photonics. “We have to get our act together—industry, policymakers, and researchers,” he stated. Kalbe highlighted ongoing efforts to streamline the legislative environment and foster innovation through the EU’s Chips Act and pilot line projects for photonics. “Photonics is not a stand-alone technology; it’s intertwined with electronics and quantum systems, and we need to build a coherent ecosystem,” he explained.
Multiple speakers echoed the call for standardization, emphasizing that scaling photonics innovations across industries will be difficult without common frameworks and platforms. “If we want to scale, this ecosystem has to standardize,” Brinkhoff asserted.
Turning point
The message from the PIC Summit was clear: the photonics industry is at a turning point, and the integration of AI is driving new opportunities across diverse markets. However, to remain competitive and capitalize on these opportunities, the industry must move quickly, standardize its processes, and foster collaboration. As Opmeer put it, “The future of photonics is bright, but only if we act now.”
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