Jan. 19, 2026 –
By Anjali Boiya, Harsh Yallapragada, Rohan Chwalek, and Damon Diehl
Photonics integrated circuits (PICs), a broader and more accurate term than “silicon photonics,” are now being deployed by hyperscalers to bypass power and bandwidth ceilings in ways fundamentally different from the telecom shift from copper to fiber, both technologically and economically.
There are two factors accelerating the transition to integrated photonics and pushing the surge in commercialization efforts of these technologies: technological performance limits and market pressures.
The physical limits of electronics-based lithography and packaging constrain progress along Moore’s Law. Evolving lithographic processes increase feature density. However, forcing more electrons through smaller volumes increases heat and electrical interference. Using photons instead of electrons to carry information reduces these effects.