NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Voyant Photonics, a leader in silicon photonics technology, today announced plans to develop a chip-scale optical circuit switching (OCS) engine for AI data center networks, adapting its production-proven silicon photonic switching architecture that has been industrialized for its FMCW LiDAR platform.
The OCS Engine is being developed as a compact and highly reliable optical switching building block that can be integrated into next-generation data center switching platforms. Rather than developing a complete networking system, Voyant plans to provide its OCS technology as an engine that optical networking companies can incorporate into their own platforms.
Voyant is adapting its underlying photonic switching platform to the specific requirements of data center communications, including non-blocking switching topologies, optical loss and crosstalk, fiber attach and port density, packaging, testability, wavelength and modulation compatibility, and integration with network control systems.
The introduction comes as rapidly expanding AI clusters create new demands for moving data among GPUs and other compute resources. Optical circuit switching can reduce dependence on repeated optical-electrical-optical conversions and enable network topologies to be dynamically reconfigured to better match changing AI workloads. Citi recently forecast that the OCS market could reach $11 billion by 2030, driven initially by deployments at Google and potentially by growing adoption in NVIDIA-based AI infrastructure.
“AI infrastructure is reaching a point where moving data efficiently between compute resources is becoming as important as the compute itself,” said Clement Nouvel, CEO of Voyant Photonics. “Our approach is to give optical networking companies a compact switching engine they can build into their own platforms. We have already industrialized the underlying silicon photonic switching architecture to meet the demanding requirements of LiDAR for physical AI – reliability, stability, speed and semiconductor manufacturability. We are now applying that foundation to one of the most important emerging challenges in AI infrastructure.”
From LiDAR to AI Infrastructure
At the heart of Voyant’s technology is a high-density silicon photonics switch matrix developed to route light in the company’s FMCW LiDAR systems. The architecture uses discrete, solid-state optical paths rather than moving mirrors or continuous analog beam steering. In a data center OCS implementation, that same fundamental architecture can be configured to route optical signals among communication ports.
Voyant has spent nearly a decade developing optical switches that allow the system to re-route light in microseconds with industry leading optical losses that enable the multi-layer switch networks required for next generation data center OCS. It has already moved this technology from laboratory development into semiconductor production for its LiDAR platform, with a silicon photonics library engineered for wafer-level yield, robustness to process variation and dense integration.
“Reliability isn’t something we are adding to this technology for the data center – it has been a design requirement from the beginning,” said Dr. Steven Miller, co-founder and CTO of Voyant Photonics. “LiDAR forced us to solve for continuous operation, temperature variation, manufacturing variability and enormous numbers of switching cycles. Data center OCS presents different system requirements, but it demands the same fundamental ability to control light quickly, precisely and reliably at scale.”
A Silicon Photonics Engine for Next-Generation OCS
Voyant sees a growing opportunity for chip-scale silicon photonics as OCS expands beyond today’s large scale-out switching systems and toward AI scale-up environments, where size, switching speed, power, cost, and proximity to compute become increasingly important. The company’s architecture also provides a potential path toward tighter integration with co-packaged optics (CPO).
- Solid-state reliability: No moving switching elements, building on technology engineered for trillions of cycles.
- Low optical loss: Switch elements designed to enable multiple components to be cascaded into larger fabrics.
- High-speed switching: Switching time under 5 microseconds.
- Chip-scale integration: A compact architecture based on high-density silicon photonics.
- Semiconductor manufacturability: A technology library developed around yield, process robustness, and high-volume production.
- Flexible integration: An engine approach that enables optical networking companies to incorporate Voyant switching technology into their own platforms that serve the different hyperscaler architectures.
OCS Engine Business Model
The company plans to work with optical networking suppliers to develop and integrate the OCS Engine into next-generation switching platforms.
“Our strategy is to deliver a highly differentiated optical switching engine that infrastructure companies can build around.” Nouvel said. “That lets Voyant focus on what we do best: industrializing high-performance silicon photonics and controlling light reliably on a chip.”
About Voyant Photonics
Headquartered in New York, NY, Voyant Photonics is pioneering silicon photonic technology for data center Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) LiDAR, and other applications where steering light empowers smarter solutions. By integrating complex optical systems onto a Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC), Voyant replaces legacy mechanical and MEMS scanners with compact, solid-state, and high reliability solutions to enable the next generation of physical AI.
For more information, visit www.voyantphotonics.com or follow Voyant Photonics on LinkedIn.
For more information, contact:
sales@voyantphotonics.com
Mike Sottak
mike@wiredislandpr.com
650-248-9597
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b24e6d70-983e-452c-80c3-9fe200528df5
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