The $10T AI Buildout Has a Photonics Problem

AI's next infrastructure bottleneck? It's everything connecting them.

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.

I sat down with Thema'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.

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.

Herwig comes from deep tech investing and saw a different problem. The innovation was ready, but the industrial supply chain wasn't prepared for the speed or scale of AI demand.

We get into

› Why copper is running out of steam inside AI infrastructure

› How photonics could reduce the networking and energy bottlenecks facing AI factories

› Why the photonics supply chain wasn't prepared for the AI boom

› What Yannick learned building silicon photonics at NVIDIA

› Thema's plan to begin production in 2027 and build a major photonics manufacturing platform in Europe

Thema believes the opportunity extends far beyond a single component.

“If you look at an AI factory today, half of that is GPUs, but the other half is the technology to interconnect these GPUs.”

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.

Recorded at the Strike x Sourcery Summit in the South of France

Herwig Van Hove: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herwigvanhove

Yannick De Koninck: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannick-de-koninck-63304314

Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea

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