The Tech Download: How chip companies are looking to use light to solve this major AI bottleneck - CNBC

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented capital investment and industry expectations, yet it also presents significant challenges. A major bottleneck in AI systems i... Read original →

The AI compute arms race has hit the physical ceiling of electrical interconnects, thrusting photonics from niche to infrastructure-critical. NVIDIA’s silicon photonics bet isn’t isolated—it forces a full-stack redesign: upstream players like Coherent and Corning gain pricing power, while GPU architectures must co-evolve with optical I/O, lengthening design cycles and raising barriers to entry. Geopolitically, U.S. CHIPS Act export controls could soon extend to photonic components, pressuring TSMC (Taiwan, China) and Samsung to localize optical engine integration. Though SK Hynix and Micron ride the HBM wave, their bandwidth edge may erode by 2027 without optical interfaces. Within 18 months, a standards war will erupt—NVIDIA-backed OIF versus Intel’s UCIe extensions—with Marvell and optical connectivity vendors as pivotal arbiters.