TrendForce's latest silicon photonics research says rapid expansion in AI training and inference is driving data centers toward higher power, density and larger-scale clusters, boosting energy costs from data movement and prompting cloud service providers to elevate interconnect technology to strategic parity with compute. TrendForce warns interconnect architecture is now a key determinant of AI-factory expansion speed, energy efficiency and supply-chain control, and forecasts co-packaged optics

TrendForce's latest silicon photonics research says rapid expansion in AI training and inference is driving data centers toward higher power, density and larger-scale clusters, boosting energy costs from data movement and prompting cloud service providers to elevate interconnect technology to strategic parity with compute. TrendForce warns interconnect architecture is now a key determinant of AI-factory expansion speed, energy efficiency and supply-chain control, and forecasts co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-package optics (NPO) market value to jump from roughly $100 mln in 2025 to more than $39 bln by 2030.