Polski
Metalenses Head Overseas, While Fiber Optic Cables Dive Underwater
This week in photonics is a lesson in scaling at two completely different levels – from nanostructures just tens of nanometers wide to cables laid across the ocean floor. The common denominator? A hunger for bandwidth driven by AI and data centers, pushing the industry to invest in physical infrastructure on a massive scale.
01 · Nanophotonics
Metalenses Leave the Lab: MetaOptics Builds a Production Line in the US [1]
Singapore-based MetaOptics, one of the few companies in the world capable of manufacturing glass metalenses at mass scale, has closed a funding round of up to $10 million with US fund White Lion Capital. The deal takes the form of a warrant deed – granting the right to issue up to 40 million new shares – and the funds raised will go toward building the company's first front-end production line in Silicon Valley [1].
At the heart of this investment is immersive DUV photolithography, which already lets the company manufacture color metalenses on 12-inch glass substrates – more than ten wafers per hour, with nanostructures down to 80 nanometers. That's a level of precision and throughput that until recently was associated exclusively with the semiconductor industry, and is now making its way into optics [1].
Why does this matter? MetaOptics is counting on demand from a wide range of directions: smartphones, 3D biometric modules, miniature projectors, automotive LIDAR sensors, AR/VR headsets, and – particularly interesting for the telecom industry – the co-packaged optics market for AI data centers. The company estimates that the addressable metalens market will grow from around $100 million today to nearly a billion dollars by 2030. Moving production closer to US customers is meant to accelerate adoption in precisely these segments [1].
02 · Fiber Optic Infrastructure
Lightera to Nearly Triple Submarine Fiber Production by 2029 [2]
If metalenses are a story about the nanoscale, this week's second piece of news takes us to the opposite end of the spectrum – the ocean floor. Lightera, the successor to Corning's optical fiber business, has announced a major capital investment set to nearly triple its production capacity for submarine cable fibers by 2029 [2].
The expansion will cover three of the company's facilities: Brøndby in Denmark, and Norcross, Georgia and Sturbridge, Massachusetts in the US. As Lightera CEO Holly Hulse points out, growing demand for global bandwidth requires both greater manufacturing capacity and next-generation optical technologies – a decision that directly responds to the explosion of investment in artificial intelligence, hyperscale data centers, and cloud computing [2].
Two technological threads are worth highlighting here. First, the company is preparing to commercialize multicore fiber, with its first submarine deployments planned for 2029–2030 – a genuine leap forward in the capacity of transoceanic connections. Second, Lightera is simultaneously showcasing new connector solutions for co-packaged optics at industry trade shows – a technology increasingly bridging the world of telecommunications with the design of AI data centers themselves [2].
This is a topic that gets far less attention than chips or AI models themselves, yet in practice it determines whether data even makes it to where it needs to go. Submarine cables are, quite literally, the backbone of the global internet – and as we can see, the industry is treating growing data traffic just as seriously at the level of physical infrastructure as at the level of algorithms.
03
Scale Makes the Difference
MetaOptics' metalenses and Lightera's fibers differ in almost every way – size, application, geography. But they share one thing: pressure from AI and data centers that is forcing photonics manufacturers to invest in mass, repeatable production – whether at the level of nanostructures on a glass wafer or kilometers of cable on the ocean floor. That's a good sign for the whole industry: photonics is no longer a niche demonstration technology – it's becoming critical infrastructure.
We'll be discussing how these and similar technologies are transforming the industry live at the International Trade Fair for Photonic Technology Applications in Industry – Photonics Expo Poland 2027. See you there!
Invitation
From metalenses manufactured at industrial scale to fiber optic cables laid across the ocean floor – photonics is powering AI infrastructure today at every level. Want to see these technologies live and talk with the people building them? Visit the International Trade Fair for Photonic Technology Applications in Industry – Photonics Expo Poland 2027 and find out what's coming for the industry in the years ahead.
Photonics Expo Poland 2027Footnotes
[1] optics.org / PR Newswire — https://optics.org/news/metaoptics-looks-to-expand-us-production-with-10m-warrant-deal[2] optics.org / Lightera — https://lightera.com/n/lightera-announces-major-capital-investment-to-expand-submarine-optical-fiber-manufacturing/