For the past twenty years, the semiconductor industry has been the engine of the digital economy. Moore's Law, increasingly powerful processors, cloud computing, smartphones, and artificial intelligence have all been built upon the extraordinary capacity of semiconductor technologies to continuously increase computing power while reducing costs.

Today, however, the industry is approaching a new inflection point.

The challenge is no longer only about computing power. It is increasingly about energy. As artificial intelligence scales globally, the world is rapidly discovering that the future of computing is constrained not only by the number of processors available, but also by the ability to power, cool, and connect them efficiently.

This is where photonics emerges as a potential game-changing technology.

By using photons rather than electrons to transport and process information, photonic technologies offer a credible path toward overcoming some of the most fundamental limitations facing modern computing infrastructure. While semiconductors enabled the digital revolution, photonics may become the essential technology that enables the next wave of AI, quantum computing, and intelligent infrastructure.

The strategic importance of this transition cannot be overstated. The countries that master photonics may ultimately control the technological foundations of future AI systems, much as semiconductor leadership has shaped technological power over the past several decades.

The energy crisis behind the AI revolution

Artificial intelligence is creating an unprecedented demand for computing resources.

Training large-scale AI models requires massive GPU clusters, thousands of servers, and increasingly complex data center architectures. Every new generation of AI models requires exponentially greater volumes of data to be transferred between processors, memory systems, storage platforms, and networks.

The problem is simple: data transportation has become almost as expensive as processing data.

Modern data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity. AI infrastructure is driving energy demand to levels that were unimaginable only a few years ago. Power supply, cooling systems, and thermal management are becoming critical constraints on future growth.

Semiconductors remain exceptionally efficient for performing calculations, but electrons generate heat, encounter resistance, and require substantial energy to move large quantities of information across increasingly dense systems.

In many respects, the semiconductor industry is now facing challenges similar to those that transportation infrastructure encounters when roads become saturated: increasing the number of vehicles is no longer sufficient if the highways themselves become congested.

Photonics offers an alternative.

By transmitting information through light rather than electrical currents, photonic systems can transport dramatically larger volumes of data with lower latency and significantly reduced energy consumption. Light produces far less heat than electron-based communication and allows multiple streams of information to travel simultaneously through the same optical pathway.

For AI infrastructure operators, this promise is enormously attractive.

The objective is not simply to build faster systems. It is to build systems capable of scaling without triggering unsustainable energy consumption.

Why photonics matters more than ever

Photonics is often wrongly associated only with fiber optics and telecommunications.

In reality, it is rapidly becoming a foundational technology for multiple strategic industries.

Future applications include:

• AI infrastructure
• Hyper-scale data centers
• Quantum computing
• Autonomous mobility
• Defense systems
• Industrial automation
• Advanced sensing
• Space technologies
• Healthcare and medical imaging

What makes photonics particularly important is that it directly addresses one of the greatest technological challenges of the next twenty years: maximizing performance while minimizing energy consumption.

The future competitiveness of AI may depend less on who owns the largest number of processors and more on who can move information fastest while consuming the least amount of energy.

This is precisely the area where photonics could become decisive.

A technology of enormous potential, but not yet fully mature

Despite the excitement surrounding photonics, it is important to distinguish between current achievements and future possibilities.

Photonic technologies are already being deployed commercially, particularly in optical communication systems, data center interconnects, and integrated photonic circuits.

However, the vision of massively photonic AI infrastructure is not yet fully realized.

Significant technical challenges remain:

• Integration with electronic architectures
• Large-scale manufacturing
• Cost reduction
• Reliability
• Packaging technologies
• Design standardization
• Workforce development

The history of semiconductors provides an important lesson.

The integrated circuit was invented in the late 1950s, but it took decades of sustained investment, industrialization, research funding, ecosystem development, and government support before the semiconductor industry became the strategic pillar it is today.

Photonics will likely follow a similar path.

Its potential is undeniable, but turning that potential into a globally scalable industrial reality will require patience, long-term investment, and strategic coordination between governments, industry, universities, and investors.

Many of the key breakthroughs needed for widespread adoption are still being refined.

The race has started, but it is far from over.

Beyond technology: a new strategic competition

The most important aspect of photonics may not be technological.

It may be geopolitical.

The world increasingly understands that technological sovereignty depends on controlling critical technologies.

Over the past decade, semiconductors have demonstrated how geopolitical influence can be concentrated around a small number of strategic capabilities:

• Advanced manufacturing
• Design software
• Critical raw materials
• Specialized equipment
• Intellectual property

Photonics is creating a similar dynamic.

The future photonics value chain spans:

• Optical materials
• Advanced semiconductors
• Photonic integrated circuits
• Lasers
• Packaging technologies
• Design platforms
• Manufacturing equipment
• Specialized talent

Countries that fail to secure these capabilities risk becoming dependent on foreign ecosystems for some of the most critical technologies of the AI era.

Unlike many digital services, photonics is fundamentally tied to industrial capabilities. It cannot simply be outsourced without strategic consequences.

The teed for a national and supranational strategy

One of the greatest mistakes governments could make would be to view photonics as merely another research domain. It is rapidly becoming a strategic infrastructure technology.

The semiconductor race demonstrated that leadership is rarely achieved through market forces alone. Success required decades of industrial policy, government funding, talent development, and strategic planning.

The same will likely be true for photonics.

Countries seeking leadership in AI should already be developing comprehensive photonics strategies encompassing:

Research

Long-term support for fundamental and applied research.

Education

Building future generations of physicists, optical engineers, material scientists, and manufacturing specialists.

Industrial Capacity

Supporting domestic foundries, packaging capabilities, and photonic manufacturing ecosystems.

Resources and Supply Chains

Securing access to critical raw materials and reducing dependence on concentrated foreign suppliers.

International Alliances

Creating trusted technological partnerships capable of competing against larger ecosystems.

Defense and Security

Recognizing photonics as a dual-use technology with significant defense implications. The nations that begin planning today will enjoy a considerable advantage tomorrow. Those who wait until the market has already matured may find themselves permanently dependent on technologies developed elsewhere.

The future control point of artificial intelligence

Looking ahead, perhaps the most important strategic insight is that photonics may become a key control point within future AI infrastructure.

Today's AI race is often perceived primarily through the lens of software models and computing clusters.

Yet every AI model ultimately depends on physical infrastructure.

If photonic technologies become essential to transporting information within next-generation AI systems, then the ability to design, manufacture, and operate those technologies will become a source of economic and strategic power.

Just as semiconductor leadership became a determinant of technological influence during the digital age, photonic leadership may become a determinant of influence during the AI age.

This does not mean photonics will replace semiconductors.

The future will almost certainly combine both technologies.

Electronic chips will remain essential for computation.

Photonic chips will increasingly become essential for communication, interconnection, and energy-efficient scaling.

Together, they will form the technological backbone of future AI systems.

Conclusion

The next twenty years will be defined by a fundamental challenge: how to deliver exponentially greater computing performance without exponentially increasing energy consumption.

Photonics offers one of the most promising answers to this challenge.

Its ability to transport information at extraordinary speed and with dramatically lower energy costs could enable the next generation of AI, cloud computing, quantum networks, and intelligent infrastructure.

Yet photonics is not a short-term miracle solution. Significant technological, industrial, and economic hurdles remain. Achieving full-scale deployment will require decades of investment, innovation, and ecosystem development.

For governments and industry leaders, the implication is clear. Photonics should not be viewed merely as an emerging technology. It should be treated as a strategic national capability.

The countries that establish a coherent governance model, secure critical resources, invest in industrial capacity, develop talent, and build long-term photonics ecosystems will be best positioned to lead the next technological revolution.

In the twentieth century, energy defined economic power. In the early twenty-first century, semiconductors defined digital power.

Over the next twenty years, photonics may define AI power. And the race to master that future has already begun.

Brice Le Déroff de Szemeit

Image credit: creative common

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