Large-scale photonic processors and their applications

Digital electronics have been essential in all technological breakthroughs over the past decades, from the advent of the internet to the miniaturization of portable devices with ever-increasing capabilities. While they continue to drive technological innovation, certain applications demanding extraordinary bandwidth and performance reveal the need for complementary emerging technologies. Photonics is particularly well-suited for this purpose, leveraging light to process large volumes of information with minimal latency. The scalability of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) is advancing rapidly, with increasing numbers of actuators improving performance and extending applicability across different domains. Analyzing two decades of development, this study extracts the scalability laws guiding photonics evolution, doubling every two years and predicting a transition from hundreds to 105 actuators in PICs within six years. We also tackle key challenges and emphasize the crucial synergy between electronics, software, and photonics, which will determine the market penetration and industry impact of large-scale photonic processors.