Silicon photonics is one of the technologies expected to shape the future of artificial intelligence, communications, and data infrastructure.
At the center of much of the UK’s work in this area is CORNERSTONE, a silicon photonics innovation center led by the University of Southampton. Founded in 2014, the center operates as an open source, license-free photonics prototyping foundry, providing researchers, startups, and industry with access to the tools needed to design and test photonic integrated circuits.
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The goal is to lower the barriers that have been holding back the development of advanced chip technologies, especially when access to specialized manufacturing facilities is limited.
Reducing the increasing power demands of AI systems
CORNERSTONE is hosted by the University of Southampton in partnership with the University of Glasgow and the UK Science and Technology Resources Council. Its approach combines academic research expertise with hands-on engineering support, allowing users to move from primitive concepts to working prototypes without navigating restrictive licensing agreements or long production times.
The institute was founded by Professor Graham Reed, widely regarded as one of the pioneers of silicon photonics and the author of the first book on the subject.
His work helped establish silicon photonics as a practical technology, particularly in areas such as optical modulators and high-speed data transmission devices that are now widely used in modern telecommunications systems.
Interest in silicon photonics has grown as companies look for ways to reduce the growing power demands of AI systems.
Recent investment activity across the semiconductor and networking industries has reinforced the idea that photonics can play a key role in next-generation computing infrastructure.
I wanted to find out more, so I spoke with Professor Reed about the growth of silicon photonics, the role of new open access models, and why investment decisions made today can shape the future of AI, communications, and advanced computing around the world.
- Could CORRNERSTONE be the next Arm? If so, what is the road map? If not, why not? What would be the fundamental difference in approach?
Arm showed how a UK-based design company can grow globally by focusing on empowering design rather than mass production. In that sense, there are similarities with what we do at CORNERSTONE, but our approach is different.
We enable the innovation of silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) by lowering the barrier to entry for researchers, startups and industry. Our platform provides open access to fabrication, design tools, and processing information so that inventors can go from concept to prototype. Unlike Arm’s licensing model, our approach is intentionally open source and license-free, designed to maximize collaboration and experimentation.
However, for the UK silicon imaging industry to achieve global success, we need a national imaging roadmap. This was revealed recently in a letter from the Council of Science and Technology, advising the Prime Minister on how to take this opportunity to take pictures.
Building on the National Quantum Strategy and the Semiconductor Strategy, government and industry should work together to strengthen existing image clusters with targeted investments in skills, growth infrastructure, productivity and collaboration.
A key part of this would be the creation of a National Silicon Photonics Flight Line – a micro-industrial environment where companies can move beyond proof-of-concept prototypes and develop designs that can be made to scale.
This technology area also supports other frontier technologies that are important to the UK’s industrial strategy, such as AI hardware and advanced telephony, making it a strategic choice for the UK.
So instead of replicating Arm’s licensing model, the goal is to create the world’s most important innovation platform and ecosystem for silicon photonics, enabling UK researchers and companies to develop technologies that will power the next generation of AI infrastructure, sensing systems for healthcare and environmental monitoring, and quantum technology.
- Nvidia is betting big on Silicon Photonics. What problems are solved by photonics (data transmission or real computer – reference or training). What kind of impact would SP have if Nvidia moved to the technology at scale?
Photonics uses light rather than electrons to transmit and process information. That offers huge advantages in terms of bandwidth, bandwidth density, speed, and energy efficiency, which is why silicon photonics represents one of the most important industrial growth opportunities of this decade.
Today’s AI systems are increasingly limited by how fast data can travel between processors, memory and data centers. Optical connections built using silicon photonics can transmit data more efficiently than conventional electrical connections, dramatically reducing latency and power consumption.
This becomes more important as AI becomes more and more popular. Data centers already consume large amounts of energy, and as the adoption of AI accelerates, that demand will only grow. Research from Nvidia suggests that integrated photonics can increase energy efficiency by five times.
The problems that silicon photonics solve go beyond AI computing and energy consumption. Silicon photonics supports modern communication networks, imaging systems, sensing technologies and quantum systems.
Emerging applications range from biomedical diagnostics and environmental monitoring to LiDAR for autonomous vehicles and quantum communications. This scope of work is why the technology holds so much power.
Nvidia has already invested heavily in silicon photonics, and at GTC this year, the company’s continued commitment was clear. During his keynote speech, Jensen Huang talked about the Spectrum-X Switch update, which is the core of the Spectrum-X platform network, the first purpose-built Ethernet fabric for AI, which will now use co-packaged optics (CPO), ensuring that silicon photonics is at the center of Nvidia’s next-generation AI infrastructure.
By bringing photonics closer to Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Nvidia DIA overcomes the physical barriers of traditional interconnects. Huang’s pivot is notable: despite his historical commitment to copper to scale, he has now put imaging at the heart of the company’s AI strategy.
- Why did Cornerstone embrace the concept of an open source, license-free platform? How is that different from what others were doing?
Our goal at CORNERSTONE is to make silicon photonics accessible so that more people can innovate with it. Open source proved to be important in this regard for some users.
Traditionally, access to advanced manufacturing has been limited by complex licensing systems, high costs and a lack of flexibility. This slows down innovation, especially for startups and research groups that want to try new ideas.
CORNERSTONE takes a different approach. We are the only open source silicon photonics domain where customers can design, manufacture and test photonic integrated circuits (PICs) without restrictive licensing barriers. By removing those barriers, customers can focus on testing, building, and solving real problems rather than navigating access to technology.
We use an open source model to foster collaboration between academia, startups and industry, and ultimately support the broader silicon photonics ecosystem. Essentially, it means that new ideas can be tested faster, designs can evolve much faster, and the path from concept to implementation is much shorter.
Ultimately, open source means that technology will advance faster and, as a result, improve everyday life faster as well.
- Silicon Photonics is where the investment and interests are right now. Further down the line, are other materials considered the successor to silicon or is it taken too far?
Interest and investment is increasing in silicon photonics – as we saw with Nvidia’s recent investment of $4bn in two of its partners. But there is still work to be done to bring silicon imaging to the top of the agenda.
The future of silicon photonics will ultimately depend on the integration of new materials to unlock more performance in other applications, especially for communications at speeds above 400Gb/s/wavelength.
This is known as heterogeneous fusion, with materials such as thin film lithium niobate or barium titanate, which can enable high-speed switching.
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