A new generation of chips is emerging—one that relies on light instead of electrons. As photonics moves from experiment to platform, technology shifts from processing information toward sensing and interacting with the physical world.
In six months, over $13 billion flowed into optical technologies — not as a bet on innovation, but as a response to a growing constraint. As AI systems scale beyond the limits of copper, the real bottleneck is no longer compute, but the ability to move data. The race is shifting from GPUs to the optical supply chain that connects them.
OpenAI’s $100B+ capital raise is not funding a company—it is financing the industrialization of intelligence. As AI shifts from software to production, the real battle moves to compute, energy and infrastructure, redefining how value is created and controlled.
The semiconductor industry is not a competitive landscape but a hierarchy of control. From design to fabrication to acceleration, value concentrates in the layers that define, constrain and allocate compute across the global economy.
Semiconductors are no longer inputs within the global economy — they are its defining constraint. As compute becomes the limiting factor, growth, power and innovation are increasingly determined by access to chips and the systems that produce them.
The global economy is no longer driven by capital allocation, but by compute capacity. Beneath every market, model and machine lies a new constraint: semiconductors. This series explores how physics, energy and chip architecture are redefining power.
Google’s TurboQuant reduces AI memory usage by up to six times without performance loss, challenging the assumption that AI scaling requires ever more hardware. The shift signals a decoupling of software efficiency from traditional memory-driven infrastructure demand.
Semiconductors have become the backbone of modern power, shaping geopolitics, AI and global supply chains. From ASML’s unique position to Taiwan’s strategic role, this deep dive explores how chips evolved into the most critical resource of the digital age.
As AI systems scale, the real constraint is no longer compute but connectivity. At OFC 2026, photonics—and specifically chip packaging—emerges as the critical layer enabling performance, efficiency and scalability, positioning the Netherlands as a strategic player in global AI infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence relies on one of the most complex industrial systems ever built. From chip design and lithography to semiconductor manufacturing and hyperscale data centers, the global AI supply chain reveals how machine intelligence ultimately depends on materials, infrastructure and geopolitics.
