AI BIG Idea Series | Ted Letavic | GlobalFoundries

Join us for another session of our 2026 Generative AI Big Idea Series with Ted Letavic, Corporate Fellow at GlobalFoundries. Ted leads GF Labs, the company’s R&D arm, and played a central role in developing GF’s silicon photonics technology. Previously, he held technology leadership roles at IBM, NXP and Philips.

As AI clusters scale, the power and density constraints of copper links are bringing optics closer to the compute. We will discuss GF’s photonics roadmap from pluggables to near-packaged and co-packaged optics, where GF differentiates against other foundries, and its opportunities in data centre power and quantum computing.

Topics to be discussed:

• Photonics roadmap: How does GF see silicon photonics evolving across pluggables, near-packaged optics and co-packaged optics, and when do scale-up optical links reach volume?
• NPO and CPO: Where does near-packaged optics fit alongside full co-packaging? How do customers weigh power, cost, serviceability and reliability, and how important are standards in enabling a multi-vendor ecosystem?
• Competitive advantages: Where does GF differentiate in integration, optical performance and advanced packaging relative to other foundries? Which advantages are most sustainable as the market scales?
• Manufacturing at scale: What are the biggest hurdles to high-volume photonics deployment, and how is GF positioning its manufacturing capacity and investment to meet demand?
• Data centre power: As racks move towards 800V and higher power densities, where is GF’s power semiconductor opportunity? Which technologies and applications can it address?
• Quantum computing: Which quantum architectures can GF support, where could photonics play a role, and what milestones would make quantum a meaningful manufacturing business?
• Audience Q&A