Conversation with Ayar Labs CEO Mark Wade on Silicon Photonics, Co-Packaged Optics, and Next-Gen AI Infrastructure

Ayar Labs bets that co-packaged optics on TSMC's leading-edge nodes becomes essential AI infrastructure, targeting a $30-50B market by 2030 and eventual IPO.

• Interconnect as the new bottleneck: Mark Wade argues AI data center revenue scaling is now gated by interconnect performance, not just compute or memory, forcing a shift from electrical to optical connectivity in the scale-up fabric.
• TSMC-centric manufacturing bet: Ayar Labs builds its optical engine on TSMC's COUPE process (3nm EIC) plus advanced packaging/OSAT, arguing photonics must ride leading-edge CMOS supply chains, not standalone photonics foundries.

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