NTT All-Photonics Network targets 2027 commercialization for board-level optical devices

The transition to purely photonic transmission addresses the critical power and latency overhead caused by constant signal conversion in modern infrastructure. For streaming and high-bandwidth video delivery, this enables a distributed data center architecture where facilities 100 kilometers apart function as a single logical unit. This shift allows operators to bypass the 10-kilometer limit currently hindering low-latency scaling and provides the flexibility to relocate heavy compute workloads to regions with cheaper renewable energy. As edge computing AI demand surges to reduce cloud latency and costs, these efficiency gains become essential for sustainable growth. Watch for the market reception of PEC-2 deployments in early 2027 to gauge the adoption rate of board-level photonics.

NTT's All-Photonics Network roadmap extends well beyond PEC-2 hardware. In April 2025, NTT demonstrated on-demand APN connections from any location as part of its IOWN APN Step 3 initiative, targeting commercial service availability in fiscal year 2028. The demonstration builds on earlier APN deployments by NTT EAST and NTT WEST that launched in March 2023, and on a stable ultra-low-latency link spanning approximately 3,000 kilometers between Japan and Taiwan. Step 3 envisions temporary high-capacity, low-latency optical paths between venues and production centers, with remote video production cited as a primary use case. This positions APN as a service layer that streaming and live-event operators could consume on demand rather than provisioning permanent dark-fiber circuits.

On the commercialization front, NTT Innovative Devices Corporation was established specifically to manufacture PEC devices at scale. The subsidiary announced its product roadmap in March 2024, covering development, design, and manufacturing of photonic-electronic convergence hardware intended for global deployment. The IOWN Global Forum continues to coordinate specifications across members, and NTT's investor materials confirm a partnership with Broadcom and Accton for the opto-electronic converged switch program, with optical engine samples delivered in Q2 2026 and a live demonstration planned at OCP 2026 in Q3. The commercial target for CPO switch samples is Q4 2026, with a stated 102.4 Tbps capacity and 50 percent power reduction versus conventional pluggable transceiver architectures.

At the technical level, NTT's PEC-2 modules use silicon photonics to integrate optical modulators and receivers, supporting 32 channels of 100 Gbit/s PAM4 for an aggregate 3.2 Tbit/s per module. A prototype PEC switch deployed at Expo 2025 Osaka combined PEC-2 modules with a 51.2 Tbit/s switch chip in a 19-inch rack form factor, using a hybrid air and liquid cooling design. The module achieves an 87 percent size reduction and 50 percent power reduction compared with eight equivalent 400 Gbit/s pluggable transceivers. NTT is now developing a 6.4 Tbit/s PEC-2 variant for integration with 102.4 Tbit/s-class switch chips, and NTT Innovative Devices is pursuing a socket-type mounting structure that would make , addressing a key operational concern for data center teams accustomed to swapping pluggable optics. As accelerate, these hardware advancements will be critical for maintaining network performance.