Lumentum, Astera Labs, and Corning demonstrated optical PCIe technology at the 2026 OCP Global Summit in San Jose, combining Astera Labs' Scorpio Smart Fabric Switch, Lumentum's optical interconnect, and Corning multimode fiber in a rack-level proof of concept. The demonstration showed fully operational optical links using multiple 32 GB/s channels and an error-free PCIe 5 link, according to Lumentum senior director Christian Urricariet, who stressed it was not a product announcement. Optical PCIe carries PCIe signals over fiber rather than copper, which Corning commercial technology manager Joshua Fennimore said allows connections spanning tens to hundreds of meters inside a data center, compared to a few meters for passive copper. The technology could allow GPU, switch, and memory hardware to be placed in separate dedicated racks rather than confined by copper's reach limits.
As AI rack density and PCIe data rates rise, copper's distance and signal integrity constraints are increasingly affecting how operators can lay out compute infrastructure; optical PCIe, if it reaches deployment, could change rack and row design by enabling disaggregated architectures across multiple racks. Moving from the current proof-of-concept stage will require work across system integration, reliability, manufacturing, and customer qualification, meaning broad deployment timelines remain uncertain.
Optical PCIe as a rack-design enabler for AI infrastructure represents a meaningful hardware interconnect development, with keywords around AI rack architecture and optical interconnects signaling relevance to hyperscale compute buildouts.