April 10, 2025
1:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM CT / 10:00 AM PT / 5:00 PM GMT
Duration: 1 hour
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Summary
AI's growth is creating new opportunities in the optical networking market with demand for 400GbE and 800GbE optical modules driving a steady increase in datacom optical component spending. AI is also influencing trends in optical wavelength services, with industry leaders and regional providers accelerating market expansion. According to Vertical Systems Group, strong customer demand for retail gigabit circuits—spurred by AI adoption—is expected to push optical wavelength revenue in the U.S. to record levels.
Join us for an engaging discussion with industry experts on the intersection of AI and optics. Moderated by Sean Buckley, editor-in-chief of Lightwave+BTR, this panel will explore key industry trends and address the challenges optical networking companies face as they develop the technology powering the AI revolution.
Speakers
Matt Adams
Senior Product Manager
VIAVI Solutions
Matthew Adams is a Sr. Product Manager at VIAVI Solutions and has been with company for over 25 years. He has held leadership positions spanning R&D, technology planning, and product management. He is currently focused on developing measurement solutions supporting the design and manufacture of next generation fiber optic communication components, modules, and sub-systems. He is an active contributor to international standards, coauthored several articles and has several patents in the area. Matthew has a master’s degree in engineering physics from McMaster University in Ontario Canada
Todd Haugen
CEO
Enablence
Todd Haugen is CEO of Enablence Technologies, a leading provider of photonics semiconductors based on Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) technology for datacom and telecom applications as well as LiDAR technology-based products for automotive and robotics. Prior to joining Enablence, Haugen held senior management positions at Microsoft Corporation. He was GM at Skype Wi-Fi where he helped grow this business unit to more than 2.5 million hotspots and 1 million customers. He also served as Group Engineering Head of Privacy, Group Manager at Ohana, SharePoint and Vista. At Vista, Haugen helped reinvent the software licensing model from a rudimentary anti-piracy system to digital licensing model, enabling Windows Anytime Upgrade, which in turn helped generate more than $1 billion in revenue for Microsoft.
Before joining Microsoft, he advised several technology start-ups in the greater Seattle area, including one project, where he launched one of the first ecommerce platforms enabling companies like Disney, Nike, Ziff-Davis, and NFL to launch their ecommerce businesses. Prior to this, he held leadership positions at Accenture, Q-Strategies, where he served as CEO, and Aventail where he served as vice president of engineering. Haugen earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Colorado and a Master of Science in computer science from the University of Washington.
Dr. David Calhoun
Technical Director of Advanced Engineering
Belden | Precision Optical Technologies
David Calhoun, Technical Director of Advanced Development at Belden – Precision OT, leads a team who is focused on innovative and forward-looking technology in broadband, spanning from electronics and photonics hardware to full systems and software solutions. David’s passion for optical communications in the broadband industry is driven by his expertise in telecommunications system design – particularly high-speed transmission techniques, component design and network design. David is excited to see how the ever-increasing bandwidth and quality-of-service demands in broadband are pushed even further with the wider spread of AI applications. With these increasing demands, he believes AI will open many technology opportunities to improve the systems we deploy today and even work our way into new segments.
Terry Thorn
Vice President of Commercial Operations
Ayar Labs
Terry joins Ayar Labs after 24 years at Intel Corporation where he held a variety of leadership positions in product line management, marketing, global cloud strategy, new business development and sales. Most recently, Terry was the GM of Global Accounts in the Cloud & Enterprise Sales Group with direct ownership of some of Intel’s largest customers. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Alabama.
Darius Bunandar, PhD
Founder, Chief Scientist
Lightmatter
As Chief Scientist, Darius leads the company’s R&D in terms of new hardware, architectures. and algorithms. Prior to co-founding Lightmatter in 2017, Darius conducted his doctoral research at MIT focusing on quantum computation and communication using nanophotonic circuits. His diverse expertise spans photonics, quantum computing, software development, and mechanical engineering. Darius holds over 50 patents and has written over 40 multidisciplinary journal articles. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and dual B.S. degrees in Physics and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Tobias Müller
Chief Commercial Officer
AIXEMTEC GmbH
Tobias Müller is the chief commercial officer and one of the co-founders of AIXEMTEC GmbH, a spin-off company of Fraunhofer IPT founded in 2016. It is a provider of industrial optics assembly machines and services. Between 2020 and 2023, Tobias was technical director at AIXEMTEC, before becoming Head of the Optics Business Unit at the Fraunhofer IPT from 2018 - 2020. A team of 70 people dealing with the topics: Optics manufacturing, optical metrology, assembly and laser-assisted material processing.
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