News & Insights

Why the AI Hardware Plan matters  The Plan recognises that sovereign capability in chips and semiconductor technologies is strategically important. As AI systems demand more, countries that can scale enabling hardware will be better placed to secure resilience and long-term competitiveness.  That is especially true in the UK, where there is already capability across the photonics stack.…

Join us for a unique evening where orchestral music and physics come together to explore the quantum nature of light. Orchestral music from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries follows the story of our evolving scientific understanding of light: from electromagnetic waves to photons, from the mind-bending idea of wave-particle duality to quantum states of…

  Earlier this month, the CORNERSTONE team joined Future Worlds for their Demo Day 2026 to celebrate some of the most exciting research-led startups emerging from the University of Southampton and wider ecosystem. Among the founders pitching in London were Theo Rangarajan of Luminetic and Farah Comis of Altro Photonics. These two early-stage companies, which…

Southampton, UK, 17 June 2026 – Challenges with prototyping and access to scale-up infrastructure risk stalling the growth of the silicon photonics (SiPh) sector in key global markets if not urgently addressed, new market research published by the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre, today reveals. The market research, conducted via OnePoll and featuring insights from 500…

As an open-access silicon photonics foundry and innovation hub, we are proud to play a part in building capability across the sector. The PIC Bootcamp reflects that mission in action, helping researchers, engineers, start-ups and industry professionals build the skills and confidence needed to develop the next generation of photonic technologies. Why PIC Bootcamp was…

SOUTHAMPTON, UK, 14th May 2026 – The UK’s Silicon Photonics (SiPh) sector is entering a critical inflection point, with strong industry intent and growing market demand creating a significant opportunity for the country to build key sovereign capabilities in a burgeoning tech sector, new market research from the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre reveals.   SiPh, which integrates light-based components onto silicon chips, is fast becoming one of the…

The Council for Science and Technology’s recent letter to the Prime Minister has set out a clear case for photonics as a strategic UK priority, calling for a national roadmap, stronger support for domestic capability, and more coordinated investment across the sector. That importance is already reflected in the numbers. The UK photonics industry is…

For silicon photonics to scale across modern AI and data centre infrastructure, it must behave like a standard mass-produced chip. Light can move data faster than electrons, but making photonic systems ‘boring’ enough for reliable, high-volume deployment without constant recalibration remains the real challenge. In this guest blog for Computer Weekly, Frederic Gardes, co-investigator at…

  AI’s energy problem isn’t about raw compute – it’s about moving data. Getting information between processors, memory, and data centres fast enough, and without burning through enormous amounts of power, is where today’s systems are starting to crack.  Silicon photonics uses light rather than electricity to carry that data, and it’s attracting serious investment…