Photonics and Optical Interconnects for AI

Photonics and Optical Interconnects for AI is a community workshop of the OCP Open Systems for AI Strategic Initiative, held virtually on September 9, 2025 as part of the initiative's 2025 workshop series in the DC IT Infrastructure work area. A follow-on to the Pod and Cluster Network Interconnects for AI workshop, it brought together engineers and architects to explore the photonics and optical side of AI interconnects, with sessions on breaking the rack with light, 448G signaling and interconnect solutions, WDM optics for scale-up, pluggable optics for immersion cooling, and 3D integrated optics for frontier MoE training. The agenda and slides are available on the event page.

OCP AI/ML Physical Infra Workshop

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About This Workstream

Photonics and Optical Interconnects for AI is a community workshop of the OCP Open Systems for AI Strategic Initiative, held virtually on September 9, 2025 as part of the initiative’s 2025 workshop series in the DC IT Infrastructure work area.

Open Systems for AI is the umbrella Strategic Initiative that coordinates the OCP Community’s work across its Projects and other Initiatives toward an open ecosystem for AI data center infrastructure. Its scope covers guiding and highlighting key AI infrastructure contributions and facilitating workshops and OCP Foundation alliances, organized into three work areas: DC Physical Infrastructure, DC IT Infrastructure, and Systems Management.

Building on the initiative’s earlier workshops on the Data Center Physical Infrastructure work area, this workshop brought together engineer and architect practitioners to share their knowledge and vision on data center IT infrastructure, focusing on the photonics and optical side of AI interconnects as a follow-on to the Pod and Cluster Network Interconnects for AI workshop.

Sessions

  • Break the Rack with Light — Simon McCormack (Drut Technologies)
  • 448Gbps Signaling Through Sub-Nyquist Transmission Lines — John Calvin (Keysight)
  • 448Gb/s Solution for AI Scale-Up and Scale-Out Interconnect — Naim Ben-Hamida and Bilal Riaz (Ciena)
  • Scaling Up AI with WDM Optics — Nicolas Herriau and Ali Dormiani (Xscape Photonics)
  • Pluggable Optics for Immersion Cooling — Tiger Ninomiya (Accelink)
  • Accelerating Frontier MoE Training with 3D Integrated Optics — Taylor Groves (LightMatter)

Workshop materials

The full agenda with presentation slides is on the event page.

Workshop Agenda and Slides

Scope

Topics covered in this workshop:

Optical disaggregation — extending AI systems beyond the rack with light
448G signaling — 448 Gb/s signaling and solutions for AI scale-up and scale-out interconnect
WDM optics — wavelength-division multiplexing optics for scaling up AI systems
Optics and cooling — pluggable optics designed for immersion-cooled environments
Integrated photonics — 3D integrated optics for accelerating frontier mixture-of-experts training