China’s hollow-core fiber trial pushes 51.3 Tb/s over 128 miles without signal regeneration

Chinese firm Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) announced on June 16 that it had successfully completed the world's first field trial of hollow-core fiber (HCF) wavelen... Read original →

YOFC and China Telecom’s field trial of hollow-core fiber (HCF) WDM fundamentally disrupts the co-evolution trajectory of EDFA-based amplification and silicon photonics. Technically, HCF’s negligible nonlinearity reduces reliance on sub-3nm CPO architectures, eroding Nvidia’s interconnect leverage in AI clusters. From a compliance standpoint, China has nearly closed its HCF supply loop—from preforms (YOFC) to coatings (Heraeus alternatives)—minimizing exposure to U.S./EU export controls. Strategically, if Corning and Meta fail to commercialize their HCF platform by late 2027, they risk losing AI data center optical interconnect share to Chinese vendors. Within 18 months, expect HCF deployment between AI compute hubs in the Yangtze River Delta and Greater Bay Area, forcing global transceiver makers to overhaul roadmaps and positioning HCF as a critical enabler for 6G fronthaul.