Joint Summer School on Optical Interconnect for AI and Hyperscale
Joint EU UK Summer School on Optical Interconnect for AI, Hyperscale, Space and Quantum 2025
The Joint EU UK Summer School on Optical Interconnect for AI, Hyperscale, Space and Quantum 2025, was held from 8th to 10th July 2025. The summer school was supported by the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics Society Chapter and by the following Horizon Europe projects: DYNAMOS, ADOPTION, ALLEGRO, OCTAPUS and PUNCH and the UK projects EQUINOX and HIKARU.
The summer school was organised and chaired by Richard Pitwon and Lee Crudgington provided the introduction and call for volunteers to IEEE.
This Summer School represented an unprecedented joint collaboration between multiple synergistic EU and UK projects and provided a comprehensive grounding in the full optical and photonic eco-system underpinning the new generation of hyperscale data centres and AI including emerging space and quantum communication applications, which draw from the new generation of hyperscale technologies.
Over 80 people attended from industry and academia, which turned out to be an optimal number for networking and unrushed deeper technical conversations. In particular there many discussions between the supporting projects on areas of harmonisation and cross-pollination.
It is not clear how many were IEEE members, but Richard Pitwon and Lee Crudgington helped promote IEEE.
This summer school was not just aimed at academics (post-graduates and researchers), but crucially young professionals from industry such as engineers, in order to disseminate and help build up a European skill base in these new crucial new technology fields from the ground up.
Speakers included: Richard Pitwon (IEEE, Resolute Photonics, Seagate), Lee Crudgington (IEEE), Katherine Bryant (VTT), Cleitus Antony (Tyndall Institute), Michail Symeonidis (Fraunhofer IZM), Prof. Chris Vagionas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Prof. Geert Van Steenberge (IMEC, Ghent University, Peter Ossieur (IMEC), Frank Smyth (Pilot Photonics), Weiming Yao (TU Eindhoven), Cathy White (BT), Prof. Takaaki Ishigure (Keio University), Prof. Andrea Di Falco (University of St Andrews), Mirko Pittaluga (Wave Photonics), Robert Palmer (Huawei), Prof. Gunther Roelkens (Ghent University), Alison McLeod (Technology Scotland), Frederic Gardes (Southampton University), Carsten Eschenbaum (Silorix), Hideyuki Nasu (Furukawa), Prof. Shiyoshi Yokoyama (Kyushu University), Henning Schroeder (Fraunhofer IZM), Taketsugu Sawaruma (Furukawa), Andrew Meek (Senko), Andy Vicks (STFC, RAL Space), Louise Wells (Toshiba) and Simon Hall (NPL).
Lee Crudgington was very active in promoting IEEE and recruiting members. There was a St Andrews IEEE photonics chapter, which is dormant, but we will use this event to reignite it. Since this event just happened it is too early to indicate the results.
The feedback from this event was exclusively strongly positive with many requesting the summer school be run again.
Date and Time
Location
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- University of St Andrews
- St Andrews, Scotland
- United Kingdom
Speakers
Richard Pitwon of IEEE Photonics Society
Workshop Chair
Biography:
Dr. Richard Pitwon is the founder and CEO of Resolute Photonics and has more than 20 years transformational expertise in optical and photonic system interconnect, integration and architectures for data centre, IoT and data-communications applications.
Richard previously led the photonics research and development groups at Xyratex and Seagate for over 12 years. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the IET (FIET) and Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP). He has generated over 54 patents, authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications including 4 international standards.
Richard is the current chair of the IEC international standards subcommittee on fibre optic interconnecting devices and passive components (SC86B), as well as secretary of the IEC optical circuit boards standards group and principal UK expert on international standards group (IEC / BSI) for Photonic Integrated Circuits (SC86C/WG4) and embedded devices (TC91/WG6). He is also the chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics chapter, where he founded the IEEE British and Irish Conference on Optics and Photonics.
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Dr. Lee James Crudgington of IEEE Photonics Society
Session Chair
Biography:
Dr. Lee Crudgington is Director of Business Development at OneTouch Technology.
- Dr. Crudgington is a photonics research scientist and active IEEE volunteer with expertise in silicon photonics, optical communication systems, and integrated photonic circuits.
- Lee earned a PhD in Solar Energy Technology from the University of Southampton and conducted research at its Optoelectronics Research Centre, contributing to publications in areas such as RF-photonics and optical signal processing;
- Lee has co-authored work in leading journals including Nature Communications; professionally, he works in the photonics industry, bridging research and commercial applications.
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Agenda
In this unprecedented joint effort, you will learn about the full optical and photonic eco-system underpinning the new generation of hyperscale data centres, High Performance Computing and AI. This summerschool will introduce you to the following critical topics and report on the latest advances:
- WDM architectures
- AI and neuromorphic computing
- Photonic Integrated Circuits (passive and active) including an introduction to designing PICs
- Electro-optic modulators and photo-detectors
- Fast tunable lasers and laser combs
- Optical PCBs (polymer and glass waveuides)
- High-speed transceivers
- Switching and programmable photonics
- Photonics packaging
- Quantum interconnect