5 July 2026
Montreal, Canada
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the IEEE Photonics Society, Montreal Chapter, are organizing a workshop on “Photonics for AI Infrastructure” taking place on 5 July 2026 in Montreal, Canada. Remote participation will be provided.
This workshop will provide a collaborative platform for stakeholders involved in the evolution of AI infrastructure, including scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across architectures. It will feature technical presentations and discussions on key enabling technologies such as:
- Fiber network sensing and advanced optical infrastructure
- Co-packaged optics for high-performance computing systems
- Optical circuit switching for data center and network scalability
- Photonic and quantum computing technologies
The workshop aims to foster dialogue, knowledge exchange, and partnerships across industry, academia, and standards organizations. In particular, it seeks to strengthen collaboration between
ITU-T Study Group 15 and the broader photonics research, development, and innovation community by addressing topics of shared interest and strategic importance.
Participation is free of charge and is open to Members from IEEE, ITU Member States, Sector Members, Associates and Academic Institutions and to any individual from a country that is a member of ITU who wish to contribute to the work. This includes individuals who are also members of international, regional and national organizations.
See detailed steps to register here
Register here
Remote Participation: Connect to the MyWorkspace platform using the same ITU user account with which you registered for the meeting. You can launch the remote session by clicking the JOIN button from 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting.
Draft Programme
13:00 - 13:15
| Welcome Remarks- Glenn Parsons, ITU-T SG15
- Matthew Posner, IEEE Photonics Society
|
| 13:15 - 14:35 | Session 1: Building the AI Rack- Mohammad Alavirad, Dell
- Marcel Boudreau, Lumentum
- Anabel Alarcon, Exfo
- José Garcia-Echeverria, Axonal Networks
|
| 14:35 - 15:00 | Break
|
| 15:00 -16:20 | Session 2: Access and Scale Across
- Fabio Cavaliere, Ericsson, & David Plant, McGill University
- Jun Shan Wey, Verizon
- Christine Tremblay, ETS
- Piotr Roztocki, Ki3 Photonics
|
| 16:20 - 16:30 | Closing Remarks
|
