The annual Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) is undergoing a significant transformation, evolving from a top optical exhibition centered on the telecommunications industry to one fully pivoted toward AI infrastructure.

Held this week in Los Angeles, the event featured major players like Corning, Cisco, Arista, Nokia, and Ciena unveiling a host of new products. The focus was intensely concentrated on one central challenge: how to pack higher-density optical fibers into smaller physical spaces to meet the bandwidth and low-latency demands of AI data centers.

The imprint of AI was ubiquitous, from booth layouts to product launches. Brian Rhoney, Market Development Manager for Data Centers at Corning, noted that in the past, the company primarily showcased front-haul network products at the conference—those connecting data centers to each other and to the long-haul internet.

But today, the back-end network—the connections between machines inside the data center—has become an equally important, if not more critical, area of focus, Rhoney said. This year, it seems every product has an AI story to tell.

One analyst attending a media roundtable was even more direct, stating the event has shifted from a telecom show to an AI show.

**Density Reigns Supreme: Packing Fiber into Tighter Spaces**

The overarching theme of this year's conference was "more"—more bandwidth, higher density, and smaller footprints. Corning displayed a side-by-side comparison on its show floor: traditional fiber cables packaged in plastic tubes versus its new micro-cables, which remove the plastic tube to save space. Brian Rhoney explained that the circular structure of traditional cables is inefficient for stacking, and with limited conduit space already a constraint in long-haul markets, maximizing the number of fibers within a confined space is paramount.

Corning also highlighted its multi-core fiber technology, which integrates four optical cores into a single fiber instead of the traditional single-core design, enabling a leap in bandwidth capacity. Furthermore, for inside data centers, Corning presented high-density fiber cabling solutions designed for connecting server racks to switch racks within server stacks.

At the switch level, Arista introduced a new eXtra-dense Pluggable Optics (XPO) transceiver, a novel pluggable optical module slated for mass production in 2027. Arista claims the XPO module can increase bandwidth per rack unit by four times compared to the widely used OSFP方案, while simultaneously reducing the switch rack footprint by 75% and lowering costs for data center power infrastructure, cooling, and cabling. This could potentially save billions in the construction of AI factories. The multi-source agreement (MSA) supporting this solution has garnered backing from over 40 members and was formally disclosed at the conference.

**Power Efficiency and Architecture: Dual Breakthroughs for Next-Gen Optical Networks**

Reducing power consumption was another key theme, with multiple vendors highlighting significant energy savings as a primary product feature. Ciena showcased its new Reconfigurable Line Systems (RLS) featuring Hyper-Rail technology. This technology abandons traditional wavelength multiplexing in favor of transmission using "fully-filled fibers," enabling up to 32 times density improvement between clusters and data centers while reducing power consumption per rack by up to 75%. Ciena stated this technology primarily targets the training networks of hyperscale cloud providers, who are connecting multiple sites into distributed networks to support ever-larger AI models.

Additionally, Ciena exhibited its new Vesta co-packaged optics (CPO) pluggable connector, designed to connect directly to switch ASIC chips, increasing link speed while lowering power usage. Cisco launched its Open Transport 3000 series, claiming the new system can reduce power consumption by 75% and improve rack space utilization by 80%. This system encapsulates multiple parallel fibers within a single line card, supporting channel expansion from local switches to other racks and data centers, aiming to help telecom operators and enterprises consolidate multi-site resources to handle massive AI models using parallel distributed architectures.

Cisco also announced the addition of 800Gb/s capacity for its NCS 1014 transponder and showcased coherent pluggable optics based on Acacia technology. Nokia unveiled a "building block" architecture based on new DSP and optical front-end components. This portfolio includes coherent pluggable transceivers for long-haul and data center interconnects, short-reach high-bandwidth optical connectors for enterprise and campus deployments, and a double-sided pluggable optical module compatible with CPO, near-packaged optics (NPO), and linear pluggable optics (LPO) switches.

Nokia further introduced an out-of-band management system for passive optical networks (PON) called Aurelis, claiming it can reduce the number of switches required in the network by 90% while cutting energy consumption by 50%.

**Hollow-Core Fiber: Moving from Lab to Large-Scale Deployment**

Hollow-core fiber was one of the most hotly discussed frontier topics at the conference. Unlike traditional fiber where light travels through solid glass, hollow-core fiber guides light through a hollow glass core, significantly reducing latency. Corning's Brian Rhoney stated that while inter-data center connectivity was previously limited by distance, hollow-core fiber now enables connections to more distant data centers. He acknowledged that hollow-core fiber is not a new technology, but after years of continuous improvement, "it is now practical, and market activity around it is very high."

Corning entered a partnership with Microsoft in September 2025 to provide manufacturing services for hollow-core fiber. Reports indicate Microsoft also signed agreements with Corning and Heraeus Covantics, aiming to build a "multinational production supply chain" to scale up the global deployment of next-generation fiber.

**Component Level: CPO and High-Speed Transceivers Accelerate Adoption**

In the optical components sector, Coherent, Lumentum, and Marvell collectively disclosed numerous new product developments during the conference. Coherent announced several co-packaged optics technologies, including a 6.4T slot-type CPO based on silicon photonics paired with an external laser source module using its proprietary high-power InP continuous-wave laser; a multi-mode slot-type CPO based on high-speed VCSELs; and a 400G InP modulator operating on a silicon base. Coherent's stock rose approximately 1% in midday trading.

Lumentum showcased multiple products targeting AI and cloud data centers, including a 1.6T DR4 OSFP pluggable transceiver prototype utilizing four 400G differential EML lasers, as well as an 800mW ultra-high-power laser and a 16-channel DWDM ultra-high-power laser. Rafik Ward, Lumentum's Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, stated that the company's product portfolio is designed to support the scale, speed, and efficiency required for next-generation AI and cloud data center infrastructure. Lumentum's stock increased around 4% on the day.

Marvell and Lumentum jointly demonstrated interoperability between Marvell's Aquila 1.6T coherent-lite DSP, Ara 1.6T PAM4 optical DSP, and COLORZ® 800 ZR/ZR+ DCI modules with Lumentum's R300 optical circuit switch (OCS) platform. Xi Wang, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Marvell's Connectivity Business Group, said the joint solution demonstrates how next-generation AI networks can achieve breakthrough improvements in performance, power efficiency, and architectural flexibility.