Some of the world's leading optical providers say the rise of AI and data center traffic is driving increased demand for greater optical connectivity, such as 400G and 800G. Fierce Network reached out to executives at Ciena, Nokia, and Ribbon to get their predictions for the optical market in 2026.
Jürgen Hatheier, Vice President of Business Development and Technical Director of Global Alliances at Ciena, stated that the provider is observing a clear shift toward much higher-capacity optical connectivity.
“We are also seeing strong demand for 1.6 Tbps wavelengths as service providers, cloud providers, and neoscaler customers upgrade their networks to support AI workloads,” Hatheier said. “Service providers such as Lumen in the US, e& in the UAE, and Cirion in Latin America (to name just a few) have adopted our 1.6 Tbps WaveLogic 6 coherent solution to support the explosive growth of cloud and AI traffic. We expect this demand to continue through 2026.”
The pace of innovation in fiber optics is "astonishing" lately, says Ciena executive
Rob Shore, Nokia's director of optical network portfolio marketing, says the company is seeing strong and sustained demand for 400G and a growing push towards 800G, especially from cloud and content providers who are interconnecting AI training sites and data centers.
“400G is now the norm, while 800G deployments are just beginning and are expected to scale rapidly through 2026,” Shore says. “One emerging application driving the adoption of 800G coherent optics is network scalability, where a GPU cluster is distributed across multiple geographically dispersed data centers connected with high-speed optics. The market for these types of high-speed interfaces is projected to reach more than one million units per year by 2030.”.
AOI Increases Focus on 800G Optics for Data Centers.
In fact, the supplier AOI said in October that it plans to increase its production of 800G transceivers for data centers by building a new 210,000-square-foot facility at its headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas. The plant will also be used to manufacture 1.6 Tbps transceivers when the company receives more orders.
"The manufacturing process we have developed and the design of the 800G and subsequently 1.6 terabit transceivers is very similar, which means that AOI can produce both on the same production line," said Stefan Murry, AOI's chief financial officer and chief strategy officer.
Jonathan Homa, senior director of Solutions Marketing at Ribbon, told Fierce: "There is a lot of interest in 400G and 800G connectivity, and our Apollo platform already offers 800G capabilities in live deployments to help operators and hyperscalers scale quickly."
Ribbon has recently partnered with North Georgia Network Cooperative (NGN), a key contributor to regional broadband development, to modernize and expand its optical network with Ribbon's Apollo 800G optical transport solution.
When asked for a prediction about the optical market in 2026, Hatheier of Ciena stated, “The next wave of AI innovation will focus on the efficient movement of data between GPUs, and interconnects will become the key factor for scalability.” He asserted that by 2026, AI fabrics, with silicon, optical, and link technologies, will become a competitive advantage and will be as important as GPUs.
Nokia's Shore predicts that by 2026, 800G coherent connectors will become the standard optical connectivity solution for AI networks, and that there will be an evolution of short-range optical solutions within data centers, optimized around energy efficiency.
from a service provider's perspective
Wayne Lotter, Director of International Networks at Telstra International (Australia), shared the following prediction with Fierce
“Looking ahead to 2026, we will see an even greater shift in how carriers, enterprises, and hyperscalers consume high-bandwidth capacity for their cloud and data center needs. The industry is moving toward ‘capacity-as-a-service’ models, where customers subscribe to flexible pools of capacity that can be deployed wherever needed via subsea and terrestrial routes.”
This represents a significant shift from the traditional model of ordering individual capacity. Instead, customers will work with outcome-based agreements designed to meet the demands of AI and cloud services. By dynamically shifting capacity across different networks, businesses will begin to gain the flexibility and speed to market they need.
By Linda Hardesty, Chief Analyst, Communications Technologies, Fierce Network
