GlobalFoundries reports strong Chinese demand for optical modules as AI data centres expand
GlobalFoundries says demand for optical networking modules in China is strong as companies build data centres and upgrade data transmission standards. The US chipmaker is expanding local partnerships and facilities while developing silicon-photonics products, though an executive said manufacturing and testing at scale remained a major challenge.
US contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries says demand for optical networking modules in China is strong as the construction of artificial-intelligence data centres accelerates. Shankaran Janardhanan, senior vice-president of the company’s photonics and radio-frequency division, told the South China Morning Post that Chinese optical-module makers were shipping heavily to US hyperscalers as data standards moved from 100 to 200 gigabits per second per lane. Optical modules transmit data in high-performance data centres.
GlobalFoundries sees the growth as an opportunity to supply speciality semiconductors to Chinese producers while serving the expanding connectivity needs of companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Alibaba and Tencent. Nvidia is also working on optical connectivity and silicon photonics as part of efforts to address limits in conventional electrical bandwidth. The industry is considering several designs, including pluggable modules, near-packaged optics and co-packaged optics.
Janardhanan said the main obstacle was not choosing among those designs but manufacturing and testing optical components at scale. GlobalFoundries has introduced silicon-photonics and advanced-packaging solutions, including a co-packaged advanced light engine known as “Scale”, designed to support mass production of complex optical components. The company has operated in China for 12 years and is expanding its domestic manufacturing links.
Earlier this month it opened an office in Guangzhou to deepen a partnership with local foundry Zen Semi focused on 40-nanometre automotive chips. Janardhanan said the partnership was evidence that regional manufacturing could work when it addressed a specific Chinese market and technology need. He added that decisions on additional expansion would be made individually as conditions changed.
GlobalFoundries executives also stressed the importance of maintaining a resilient global supply chain. Janardhanan said no single region could independently cover the entire semiconductor value chain, pointing to the company’s facilities in the United States, Europe and Asia. Looking beyond data centres, he said physical artificial intelligence—including humanoid robots, autonomous vehicles and smart devices—could become a major market.
He said China was moving quickly in deploying such systems and that GlobalFoundries aimed to combine chip technology, processor intellectual property and software capabilities.
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