The $10T AI Buildout Has a Photonics Problem

<p>AI&#39;s next infrastructure bottleneck? It&#39;s everything connecting them.</p><p>As AI models grow, they increasingly need to run across massive clusters of GPUs. Traditional copper interconnects are running out of steam, pushing the industry toward optical interconnects and silicon photonics.</p><p>I sat down with Thema&#39;s Herwig Van Hove and Yannick De Koninck in Monaco to go deep on the photonics supply chain powering the next generation of AI infrastructure.</p><p>Yannick spent five years at NVIDIA, where he helped build its silicon photonics technology from scratch to product-ready maturity. He left what he calls the “golden palace” to join Thema and help build large-scale photonics manufacturing in Europe.</p><p>Herwig comes from deep tech investing and saw a different problem. The innovation was ready, but the industrial supply chain wasn&#39;t prepared for the speed or scale of AI demand.</p><p>We get into</p><p>› Why copper is running out of steam inside AI infrastructure</p><p>› How photonics could reduce the networking and energy bottlenecks facing AI factories</p><p>› Why the photonics supply chain wasn&#39;t prepared for the AI boom</p><p>› What Yannick learned building silicon photonics at NVIDIA</p><p>› Thema&#39;s plan to begin production in 2027 and build a major photonics manufacturing platform in Europe</p><p>Thema believes the opportunity extends far beyond a single component.</p><p>“If you look at an AI factory today, half of that is GPUs, but the other half is the technology to interconnect these GPUs.”</p><p>Herwig believes Europe has a rare opportunity to turn decades of photonics research into industrial scale, pointing to ASML as proof that Europe has done it before.</p><p>Recorded at the Strike x Sourcery Summit in the South of France<br></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Herwig Van Hove: </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/herwigvanhove/?skipRedirect=true" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/herwigvanhove</a></p><p><strong>Yannick De Koninck: </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannick-de-koninck-63304314/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannick-de-koninck-63304314</a></p><p><strong>Molly O’Shea:</strong> <a href="https://x.com/MollySOShea" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://x.com/MollySOShea</a> </p><p><strong>Sourcery:</strong> ⁠<a href="https://x.com/sourceryy" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">h