Could light become the backbone of tomorrow's computers?
In this episode of The Long Frontier, hosts Brannon Jones and Abe Murray explore the rapidly advancing field of silicon photonics with Dr. Marco Fiorentino, Director of the Large-Scale Integrated Photonics Lab at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Together, they unpack how light is already powering the internet, why AI is driving a new wave of photonics innovation, and what it will take to bring optical communication—and eventually optical computing—directly onto computer chips.
From fiber optic infrastructure and hyperscale data centers to co-packaged optics, photonic AI accelerators, and quantum photonics, this conversation explores one of the foundational technologies enabling the next generation of computing.
Dr. Marco Fiorentino is Director of the Large-Scale Integrated Photonics Lab at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). With a PhD in physics and doctoral work in quantum optics, he has spent more than two decades advancing silicon photonics research, helping develop technologies that move optical communication closer to the processor and laying the groundwork for future optical computing and quantum photonic systems.
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The Long Frontier explores the technologies shaping the next 30 years of human civilization—diving deep into the science, engineering tradeoffs, and market dynamics behind the world's most important innovations.
Photonics — The science and engineering of generating, manipulating, and transmitting information using light (photons).
Silicon Photonics — A technology that integrates optical communication components directly onto silicon chips, enabling high-bandwidth, energy-efficient data transfer.
Fiber Optics — Glass fibers that transmit information using pulses of light, forming the backbone of global internet infrastructure.
Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) — A packaging approach that places optical communication hardware directly alongside AI chips or switches to improve bandwidth and reduce power consumption.
Optical Computing — A computing paradigm that performs calculations using light rather than electrical signals, with the potential for dramatically improved performance on certain workloads.
Matrix Multiplication — A fundamental mathematical operation used extensively in machine learning and neural network inference.
Quantum Photonics — The use of photons to process, transmit, or manipulate quantum information for quantum computing and communication.
Integrated Laser — A laser source incorporated directly into a photonic chip, enabling on-chip optical communication and future optical computing architectures.
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