This September, the Aircision team visited the exhibition at ECOC 2026, the European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication, held at FYCMA in Málaga. ECOC is the biggest meeting point in Europe for the optical communications industry. Spending time on its exhibition floor is one of the best ways to see where the field really stands, beyond the roadmaps and press releases.
Reconnecting with the community
One of the best parts of the week was the people. ECOC brings industry and academia together, and we had the chance to reconnect with old acquaintances from the academic world: professors, PhD students and researchers whose work we have followed for years. Alongside them were suppliers and component makers, from small specialists to established players. These conversations are hard to replace with emails or video calls. They are where ideas are exchanged openly, where you hear what is coming next, and where future collaborations often begin.
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Data centres are setting the pace
If one theme dominated the floor, it was the data centre. The explosion of AI workloads is creating enormous demand for faster, denser and more energy-efficient optical interconnects. Everywhere we looked there were 800G and 1.6T modules, co-packaged optics, silicon photonics, external laser sources and new approaches to optical switching. That demand is pulling the entire photonics industry forward: more investment, more manufacturing capacity, better tooling and more mature design and test flows.
PICs are growing up, and they are not only for data centres
What stood out most for us is how quickly photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are maturing. The platforms are becoming more accessible, the supply chain more robust, and packaging and testing more industrialised. Much of this progress is driven by data centre volumes, but its benefits reach well beyond them.
We were especially encouraged to talk with suppliers and academic groups who are actively working on PICs tailored to free-space optical (FSO) communication. A few years ago that was a niche topic. Today it is a growing area of research and development, and the building blocks are increasingly available to make it real.
A dynamic ecosystem, and an opportunity
Our overall impression is that the photonics ecosystem is dynamic, growing and doing things right. Universities are training talent and pushing new ideas, suppliers are scaling their platforms, and the industry is aligning around integration as the path forward.
For Aircision, this is a clear opportunity. As integrated photonics matures and platforms become more accessible, free-space optics can benefit from the same advances in performance, size, cost and manufacturability that are transforming data centre optics. The direction the industry is moving in fits well with where we want to go.
We left Málaga energised, with new contacts, renewed connections and a clearer view of what comes next. We are already looking forward to the next ECOC.
