PSC 2026 is the sixth edition of a conference that builds on the legacy of Photonics in Switching (PS), held annually since 2001, alternating its venue between the Americas, Europe, and Asia. This new phase explicitly incorporates emerging areas related to quantum mechanics, such as quantum networks and technologies for quantum communications and computing.
Professor José Capmany, professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and co-president of PSC 2026, highlighted the importance of Valencia hosting an international meeting of this nature:
Participation of relevant companies in the international arena
Among the speakers attending the congress is Radha Nagarajan, senior vice president and director of Optical Engineering Technology at Marvell. He holds more than 250 U.S. patents and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2025 for his contributions to advancements in high-speed lasers and photonic integration technologies. Joining him will be Bahram Jalali, professor emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a member of the NAE since 2022, who has received awards such as the Optical Society of America's RW Wood Award, the IEEE Aaron Kressel Award, and the IET Medal of Merit.
The conference will also feature Hiroki Takesue, Distinguished Senior Scientist at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corporation, a Japanese telecommunications company that has become one of the most important internationally. Andrea Melloni, Professor at the Politecnico di Milano and Director of the Photonic Devices Group, will also speak. His research focuses on integrated optical devices for telecommunications and sensors, and he has over 90 international publications and 13 patents in the field of integrated optics.
Over three days, the program will analyze how photonics—the technology that uses light to transmit and process information—can contribute to the development of new digital infrastructures, such as data centers. Topics to be covered include advanced optical networks, photonics-based computer systems, the application of artificial intelligence to communications, and new quantum technologies.
One of the main themes of the meeting will be the impact of artificial intelligence and the need to develop systems capable of responding to the increase in data and the energy consumption associated with these new applications. In this context, the conference will analyze how photonic solutions can help create faster and more efficient infrastructures.
PSC 2026 will also pay special attention to the development of quantum technologies applied to communications and computing. This section will address issues such as quantum networks, the integration of classical and quantum systems, and the role of photonics in building future digital infrastructures.
Among the featured workshops is the one dedicated to the relationship between photonics and artificial intelligence, organized by David Neilson (Nokia, United States) and José Capmany (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain), which will analyze how optical technologies can contribute to overcoming the current limits of capacity, speed and energy efficiency of AI systems.
The conference will be co-chaired by José Capmany (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain), Naoya Wada (NICT, Japan), and Madeleine Glick (Emline Technology, United States). The Technical Committee will consist of Michela Svaluto Moreolo (Telecommunications Technology Centre of Catalonia, Spain), Kiyo Ishii (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan), and David Neilson (Nokia Bell Labs, United States).
The conference will be held at the Polytechnic City of Innovation (CPI), located on the campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) between September 15 and 17, and will turn the city into a meeting point for an international scientific community working on the development of new solutions to face some of the major current technological challenges: the growth of artificial intelligence, the need for more efficient networks for data centers and the arrival of new quantum technologies.
