ST. PETERSBURG, FL – January 10, 2022 – Jabil Inc. (NYSE: JBL) offers a forecast of five important photonics trends that will continue to accelerate innovations in the new year. According to the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), the global market for core optics and photonics components is on course to surpass $400 billion within the next two years. Additionally, the biennial report, released in September, places the value of light-enabled products and services between $7 trillion and $10 trillion annually.
As the number of markets and applications poised to benefit from photonics gain momentum, companies will seek proven technology enablers to reduce the complexities of developing and deploying enhanced optical networking solutions. Jabil Photonics offers the end-to-end capabilities required to meet a wide range of application needs, including 5G, metro networking and data-center interconnects.
“Photonics is a central player in ensuring the success of many different applications,” said Giorgio Cazzaniga, director of product management, Jabil. “Our investment in advanced solutions enables Jabil Photonics to address evolving network requirements and architectures while driving innovation through the delivery of tailored services for optical design, packaging and precision manufacturing.”
Below are five photonics predictions from Jabil’s Cazzaniga forecasting the industry’s rise in stature and status in 2023:
1. Photonics are permeating data centers. As photonics gain ground in data centers, different product implementations will emerge, including active optical cables as well as connections between distributed NIC cards. Photonics also are well positioned to handle increased connections between microprocessors and memories. A bright future in supercomputing is forecast, thanks to photonic computing, which can perform calculations for machine learning much faster than its computing counterparts. Coherent pluggables will expand their applications for datacenter interconnection to cover Metro-access distances.
2. Evolving connectivity calls for co-packaged optics. Demands for increased density and reduced power are driving the adoption of near-located optics, which are embedded inside network switches. As a result, the market for co-packaged optics (CPO) will experience rapid growth.
3. Server disaggregation is on the move. Amid the growing trend to separate racks for CPU, storage, memory and GPU, optical interconnections will prevail. Photonics solutions are well suited for reducing power needs while increasing bandwidth with minimal latency.
4. Silicon photonics is increasingly relevant. Device integration and sensing applications demand ever-shrinking photonics components with greater portability, increased data rates, improved thermal management and reliability, along with reduced power consumption. Silicon photonics is the game changer poised to take optical solutions to new performance levels.
5. Open computing is a promising market. Look for more and more vendors to pursue open silicon designs as the lynchpin to advancements in optical networking and artificial intelligence. Modular and scalable offerings will lead the way.
About Jabil:
Jabil (NYSE: JBL) is a manufacturing solutions provider with over 260,000 employees across 100 locations in 30 countries. The world’s leading brands rely on Jabil’s unmatched breadth and depth of end-market experience, technical and design capabilities, manufacturing know-how, supply chain insights and global product management expertise. Driven by a common purpose, Jabil and its people are committed to making a positive impact on their local community and the environment. Visit www.jabil.
