ECOC 2024: AI and Optics

Being interview by Gareth Spence of Adtran at the recent ECOC 2024 conference and exhibition

click here

ECOC celebrates its 50th anniversary

• The European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
• The conference and exhibition will take place in Frankfurt, Germany, from September 22-26.
• Key themes at the show include satellite optical communication, artificial intelligence, networking for AI within the data centre, photonic integration, quantum and Green ICT. 

ECOC will celebrate its 50th anniversary this month.

Professor Carmen Mas MachucaThe event will include a special session highlighting the progress made in photonics over the last half century and will feature luminary speakers. 

 There will also be a celebratory event with food stalls from different countries. 

“There will be an opportunity to mingle, and we also plan an exhibition to look back at what has been achieved combined with what directions we need to take for the future,” says Jörg-Peter Elbers, an ECOC General Chair this year. 

Click to read more ...

Nokia picks Infinera to boost its optical networking arm

Nokia has announced its intention to buy optical networking specialist Infinera for $2.3 billion. 

The motivation for the Infinera acquisition is scale, said Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark, during an analyst call detailing the announcement. 

Jimmy Yu, Dell'Oro Group

Optical networking is how communications service providers and hyperscalers cope with the exponential traffic growth. 

Continual innovation is required to reduce the cost and power consumed to transport such traffic. For a systems vendor, having scale helps meet these aims.

Optical networking wasn't always central to Nokia's strategy. In 2013, Nokia sold its optical networking arm to Marlin Equity Partners, which became Coriant.

Now, Nokia wants to be a leading optical networking vendor by acquiring Infinera, a company that bought Coriant in 2018.   

Click to read more ...