{"id":41386,"date":"2026-07-29T07:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/?p=41386"},"modified":"2026-07-29T07:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:19:17","slug":"ai-boom-fuels-investments-in-photonics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/ai-boom-fuels-investments-in-photonics\/","title":{"rendered":"AI boom fuels investments in photonics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
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AI Boom Fuels Photonics Investment Surge, But Europe Risks Losing the Race to China, Investor Warns<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The AI boom, together with rising investment in 5G, defence quantum computing and medical technologies, is renewing investor interest in photonics. But as more capital flows into the sector, European companies face intensifying competition from Chinese manufacturers, raising concerns that Europe may struggle to turn its scientific strengths into industrial scale, an investor warns.<\/p>\n

Since March, Nvidia has backed US photonics companies\u00a0<\/a>Coherent<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/a>Lumentum<\/a>, among other optics and AI networking investments worth over $6 billion combined, as it seeks to replace electrical connections with faster, more efficient optical ones. Beyond data centres, 5G, quantum computing, medical technology, and defence are also fueling photonics demand, according to\u00a0<\/a>MarketsandMarkets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid the investor rush, Defiance has launched Europe’s first dedicated photonics ETF, listed on the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana since 9 July.<\/p>\n

According to Daiva Rakauskait\u0117, managing partner at a VC fund Aneli Capital, this is a strong catalyst for Europe\u2019s photonics leaders to build on the region\u2019s scientific and engineering strengths and translate them into industrial scale faster. This matters because, over the last two decades, China’s share of the photonics market has tripled to more than 30%, while Europe’s has fallen to 15%, according to a previous report by Photonics21, the European Technology Platform for Photonics.<\/p>\n

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Europe still produces world-class laser science; now it needs to make a decisive strategic move by investing to close the scale-up gap,“ Rakauskait\u0117 says. „A European startup with a working photonics design should already be able to build it at scale, rather than having European businesses turn to Chinese competitors instead. Europe is still inventing photonics and should be a committed customer of its own technology.“<\/p>\n

The leading European companies from defence, manufacturing and other industries including Mercedes, Bosch, Volkswagen, last year issued a\u00a0joint statement<\/a> urging to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of Europe\u2019s strategic photonic supply chains.<\/p>\n

Some of these challenges were addressed in the Chips Act proposal, as Integrated photonics was listed as a key enabling technology alongside traditional electronics. Therefore, according to Rakauskait\u0117, further measures are needed to help businesses move from research and pilot production to commercially competitive manufacturing.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrengthening European photonics means backing startups all the way through, from first prototype to full-scale production, with patient capital and policy that treats them as strategic assets. It also means governments recognizing that a photonics startup succeeding at scale is a matter of economic security,\u201d Rakauskait\u0117 says.<\/p>\n

One of the proofs that Europe can manufacture lasers at home is Lithuania, which\u00a0marks the 60th anniversary of its laser industry this year.\u00a090\u201395% of Lithuanian laser production is exported to more than 80 countries, while the sector continues to grow by more than 16% annually, according to the Lithuanian Innovation Agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cLithuania shows that Europe can build globally competitive laser companies. The next challenge is ensuring that companies emerging across Europe have access to the capital and manufacturing capacity needed to achieve the same success at industrial scale,\u201d Rakauskait\u0117 concludes.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Der KI-Boom treibt Photonik-Investitionen: Nvidia steckte seit M\u00e4rz \u00fcber 6 Mrd. US-Dollar in Coherent, Lumentum u.a.; zudem startete Europas erster Photonik-ETF. Investorin Daiva Rakauskait\u0117 warnt: Europa droht China zu verlieren und braucht Kapital, Skalierung und klare Industriepolitik.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":41383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_co_authors":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,31],"tags":[],"type_content":[170],"class_list":["post-41386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","category-private-equity","type_content-news"],"acf":{"homepage_featured_article":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41414,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41386\/revisions\/41414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41386"},{"taxonomy":"type_content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assetphysics.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_content?post=41386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}