This workshop aims to share emerging objectives driven by the power limitations of future optical communication systems—from submarine to intra–data centre networks—and to discuss potential technological breakthroughs.

This interactive workshop will examine the transition from SMF centric networks to architectures incorporating hollow core fibre, SDM systems, and free space optical communication technologies. Key questions include: (i) How will these technologies be integrated into existing network topologies? (ii) What deployment scenarios will adopt them first—long haul, metro, access, or data centre interconnects? (iii) What challenges arise in interoperability, cost, scalability, and network management? Participants will gain a clearer vision of how heterogeneous optical networks may evolve and what opportunities and barriers lie ahead.

This workshop will explore the future of optical communication channels, debating whether the trend towards fast narrow channels can continue indefinitely or if a shift towards slower, wider channels will become dominant. We will discuss the technical and economic factors influencing this evolution, including advancements in modulation formats, signal processing, and the changing demands of data traffic. Participants will gain insights into the potential trajectories of channel development and their implications for network design and performance.

The integration of lasers remains a significant challenge in the most scalable PICs such as Si, SiN, TFLN. In most cases, these platforms need external lasers, as on-chip lasers have yet to match the performance of discrete counterparts. Yet, as additional functionalities on the light sources are required for different applications, their integration onto PICs could be a driver for wide market adoption and cost reduction. This workshop brings a pool of experts who will discuss on one part their application needs and on the other part how different laser architectures and underlying integration technologies could meet their requirements.

Integrated photonics is approaching a critical inflection point where the main barrier to large-scale adoption is no longer device performance, but workflow maturity. In contrast to microelectronics — where highly developed modeling, standardized PDKs, and tightly integrated design-to-packaging flows enable first-time-right silicon — photonics still lacks the predictive accuracy, tool integration, and accessibility needed for rapid prototyping and fast iteration. This workshop will explore how to mature photonic workflows toward microelectronics-like streamlining, with a focus on multi-physics modeling, electronic–photonic co-design, scalable packaging, and the emerging role of programmable photonics as a path to faster validation, reconfigurability, and system-level optimization.

As hyperscalers deploy AI infrastructure at unprecedented scale, they require optical connectivity across a broad spectrum of applications, from intra-data-center GPU fabrics and optical circuit switches to inter-DC links, metro networks, and long-haul interconnects. Each application imposes distinct requirements on bandwidth, reach, latency, power consumption, and cost, driving the need for a diverse portfolio of specialized pluggable transceivers. This workshop brings together market analysts, hyperscalers, silicon vendors, and optical module designers, alongside academic researchers exploring novel photonic signal processing solutions, to examine the challenges and design trade-offs shaping next-generation pluggables from 800G through 1.6T to 3.2T and beyond.

Hollow-core fibers (HCFs) promise a step change in optical communications by enabling unrepeatered transmission beyond the limits of silica-core fiber. This workshop examines the technical breakthroughs required to reach ~1000 km unrepeatered links and evaluates the potential impact on terrestrial and submarine network architectures. Participants will gain insights from leading experts across fiber design, amplifiers, systems, and DSP innovations.

The evolution toward 6G demands more than incremental improvements — it requires rethinking how radio, optical, and data systems work together at the network edge. This workshop introduces the concept of confluent networks, where heterogeneous signals integrate natively end-to-end to meet the ultra-high data rates, low latency, and resilience requirements of tomorrow's applications. Through a mix of academic and industry perspectives, we critically examine the technologies, architectures, and open challenges that will define the path from today's converged networks to true confluence.

The first VHSP Supplement was agreed by the ITU-T in October 2025 and the ITU-T is continuing to evaluate candidate technologies for next-generation PON systems. Recently, hybrid DD/coherent architectures - combining direct and coherent detection aspects within the same system - have emerged as an interesting but under-studied option compared to the established pure IMDD and pure coherent approaches. This workshop will bring together proponents of hybrid, IMDD-only, and coherent-only solutions to create a lively and technically substantive debate.

AI-driven workloads and growing access-network demands are rapidly increasing energy consumption and stressing the scalability of today’s network infrastructures.
This workshop examines how deployable optical and photonic solutions—such as high-capacity AI interconnects, energy-efficient coherent access technologies, low-power DSP, and coordinated network-compute management—can reduce operational costs while meeting performance and sustainability targets.
Bringing together experts from academia, industry, and operators, the workshop will define key technological pathways toward sustainable AI data centers and access networks.

Telecom fiber networks are emerging as large-scale sensors enabling detection of earthquakes, deep-ocean tsunamis and microseismic activity. This workshop brings together photonics engineers and geoscientists to examine the suitability of distributed acoustic and polarization-based sensing for early warning, event localization and industrial monitoring applications such as carbon capture and storage. The session will critically assess the realistic capabilities and limitations of using existing telecom infrastructure for seismic monitoring.

Free-space optical (FSO) communications are emerging as a key technology for next-generation satellite systems, enabling high-capacity, low-latency links beyond legacy RF systems. However, atmospheric turbulence severely limits optical communication links, in particular ground-to-space uplinks, requiring advanced mitigation techniques spanning system design, adaptive optics, diversity, coding, and coherent digital processing. This workshop brings together solution providers and end users to address application requirements, review state-of-the-art mitigation strategies, and define a technology roadmap for reliable, 100+ Gbps optical space–ground networks.

The combination of fiber-to-the-room (FTTR) with Wi-Fi is an enabler for high-performance wireless indoor access in households and industries. We will discuss recent developments of next-generation optical in-building networks with a focus on the vast range of often overlooked benefits beyond higher data rates.

The rapid growth of AI-driven applications demands a high-performance, scalable, and flexible infrastructure spanning all network segments: data center interconnection, (intra-)data center networks, and data center access. How will those 3 segments architecturally and operationally evolve, and possibly converge, to satisfy the new requirements incurred by AI workloads?

This workshop challenges the status quo of siloed telemetry and asks whether multi-stakeholder and federated testbeds and data space principles can actually facilitate the development of AI and digital twin models for real networks.

Quantum communication, and more precisely quantum key distribution (QKD), has started revolutionizing secure communication over optical networks. But despite rapid progress, quantum communication remains fundamentally limited in point-to-point range due to photon loss. This workshop aims at gathering some of the world-leading actors in the rapidly evolving field of quantum repeaters, which promise overcoming this limitation.