An optical chip is displayed at the booth of Suzhou Everbright Photonics Co Ltd during the Laser World of Photonics Shanghai event on March 12, 2025. CHINA DAILY
In a spotless factory floor in Suzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu province, invisible beams of light are becoming the new fuel for the artificial intelligence revolution.
Behind layers of protective glass inside the cleanroom of Suzhou Everbright Photonics Co Ltd, machines operate around the clock, producing tiny optical chips that are increasingly critical to the AI boom.
The company is producing 800G (gigabits per second, or Gbps) and 1.6T (terabits per second, or Tbps) high-speed optical communication chips designed to shuttle enormous volumes of data between servers as companies around the world race to build faster and more powerful computing systems.
A few kilometers away, Maxphotonics is pushing light to another extreme. At its industrial park, the company has developed what it calls the world's first 160-kilowatt ultra-high power fiber laser, powerful enough to cut through exceptionally thick industrial materials.
