Photonic innovations are paving the way for faster, more energy-efficient data centers well ahead of the widespread adoption of general-purpose quantum computing. Leveraging light for data transmission and processing, photonic technologies offer significant improvements in bandwidth, latency, and energy efficiency for AI workloads. Here’s a look at the current landscape and how data center operators can prepare for the shift towards photonic infrastructure.
Photonics uses light to transmit and process data. Most data centers already rely on photonic technology for fiber-optic networking. The newer development is computing with light using photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which execute operations (often linear algebra) directly in the optical domain.
This differs from:
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Classical computing, which manipulates electrons on CMOS chips.
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Quantum computing, which uses quantum mechanics. Some quantum systems use photons, but photonic computing does not require quantum effects and can be engineered to function much like specialized classical accelerators.
