AI Demand Reshapes Optical Connectivity and Photonics Roadmaps

According to LightCounting’s CEO Vladimir Kozlov, the surge in AI development has triggered a fresh wave of demand for optical connectivity between 2023 and 2025, and that momentum is expected to carry the market’s expansion through 2030.

By Anne-Françoise Pelé, EETimes Europe | November 25, 2025

At the Silicon Photonics Workshop co-organized by CEA-Leti and Soitec alongside ECOC 2025 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of LightCounting, said the acceleration of AI is redefining demand patterns, investment cycles, and technology choices across optical connectivity. “The AI race is on,” he noted, describing a market where intense competition and fear of falling behind are fueling unprecedented levels of spending.

Kozlov emphasized that while the current surge feels sudden, early signals were visible. “Google was telling the industry back, seven years ago, that they were putting more optics into AI clusters than into the compute models.” Even so, the steep growth curve that unfolded in 2024 and continued into 2025 took most of the ecosystem by surprise. Cloud companies, he noted, have pushed investments “through the roof.” 

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