Chinese researchers invent silicon photonic multiplexer chip that uses light instead of electricity for communication — CCP says China's early steps into light-based chips precede 'major breakthroughs' in three years
Chinese state-run tabloids report a new silicon photonic microchip coming out of research labs

The race to silicon photonics has begun to heat up, with Chinese researchers developing early light-based chips. Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times reports that researchers at Fudan University have developed a "silicon photonic integrated high-order mode multiplexer chip", or more simply put, a multiplexer that sends instructions via light rather than via electricity.
The multiplexer is a switch that can receive multiple inputs and send them through a single output, used to select data from, for example, multiple memory chips. Tests from Fudan University show that its silicon photonic multiplexer supports 38 Tbps, capable of transferring 4.75 trillion LLM parameters per second. The multiplexer matters because it sends data and instructions via light rather than electrons, making it the newest member of a very young wave of photonics-based chips.
The obvious elephant in the room is the source of this information. Global Times operates under the People's Daily, the official flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and has been accused of spreading fabrications and misinformation in the past. However, we are reporting on today's multiplexer news in part because Fudan University has allegedly submitted its findings to Nature, the world's most respected scientific journal, for review, which would more than likely corroborate the claims if it is printed in Nature.
"Research into photonic chips has gained momentum, facilitating the shift from electronic to optical transmission," shared Ma Jihua, a telecom industry insider. "Major breakthroughs in application may come within the next three to five years," Ma continues, likely attempting to hint at a full silicon photonic CPU release coming from China.
Another major breakthrough for the multiplexer beyond being a microchip that uses lasers to send data is its ability to bridge the gap between photonic and electronic languages. As memory communication "typically relies on CMOS technology", the new chip successfully interconnects light-based data transmission with CMOS in a low-latency manner.
Assuming the silicon photonics multiplexer is real, it sits in rare air as a silicon photonics-based IC in the current day, particularly one coming from China. Photonics and the use of light to transmit data is in high demand in the enterprise space, as its higher speeds and lower energy draw compared to traditional electronics promise a major paradigm shift in computer design.
Today, bleeding-edge enterprise applications use photonics-based network switches to send data across AI clusters at up to 400 Tb/s, like this one from Nvidia. Startups have grown in size and notoriety as well, with Lightmatter recently announcing its photonics-based chiplet interconnect platform and firm Enosemi's recent acquisition by AMD.
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China may or may not have early photonic chips up its sleeves today, but the threat of China overtaking U.S. photonics development in the long run is very real. China's research institutions are currently more than doubling U.S. research output on post-Moore's Law chip technologies, and representing the lion's share of top-cited research, with a special interest in photonics. China sits ready to "change lanes and overtake" U.S. chipmaking tech in under a decade, a fear often quietly voiced by U.S. interests.
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Sunny Grimm is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has been building and breaking computers since 2017, serving as the resident youngster at Tom's. From APUs to RGB, Sunny has a handle on all the latest tech news.
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cruisetung TLTR and not my expertise.Reply
But I think It's truly published on Nature, in March, 3 months ago.
Edge-guided inverse design of digital metamaterial-based mode multiplexers for high-capacity multi-dimensional optical interconnect
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57689-7 -
EyadSoftwareEngineer It’s very obvious that as China has made a breakthrough in car manufacturing with transformative EV technology, moving away from internal combustion engines. China has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t just aim to catch up with current chip technology—it is striving to develop revolutionary distributive technology that will ensure its full dominance. And frankly, China is more than capable of achieving this.Reply -
bolweval Bugs Bunny; “What’s up doc?”Reply
Martian ; “I’m going to disintegrate you with my silicon photonic integrated high-order mode multiplexer chip” -
acadia11
It’s what happens when you spend your time telling kids they are elitist for wanting to go to college. Or spending countless hours arguing about if climate change is real or not, what is real is that fossil fuels are a limited dead end technology and highly inefficient. Let’s have another round of cuts to green incentives and the jobs of the future because that makes sense. Hubris, everything that goes up eventually must come down.EyadSoftwareEngineer said:It’s very obvious that as China has made a breakthrough in car manufacturing with transformative EV technology, moving away from internal combustion engines. China has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t just aim to catch up with current chip technology—it is striving to develop revolutionary distributive technology that will ensure its full dominance. And frankly, China is more than capable of achieving this. -
Geef >Mostly From story: but the threat of China's Superiority Complex overtaking U.S. photonics development in the long run is very real.Reply
I truly hope they have developed something awesome but really, China is known for saying stuff that is not true and never allowing third party benchmarks. -
Kindaian No worries, we will all die, and a future race of intelligent cockroaches will inherit the Earth. And they will be burning petrol for heating in a semi-frozen glacier age. Their archeologists will be investigating human skeletons and some weird leftover ICE engines...Reply
And the history will repeat itself. -
acadia11
Does it matter, China is historically the most advanced nation in history at almost 5000 years. And Asia has a whole has accounted for nearly most of man’s invention, Not because of ideology, politics, or anything else but because it has had the vast majority of the human population since we moved out of Africa 50,000 years ago. Without getting into to why … suffice to say when more than 60% of the earths population is on one continent and with more than 60% of its brain mass and ton of resources things will get invented there. And China accounts for almost 40% of that Asian population. Whether it was gun powder and rockets, the printing press ironically the internet its day, and a whole host of game changers … the lull in Chinese technological contribution for the last 400 years or so is at an end and things are pretty much returning to the status qou…Geef said:>Mostly From story: but the threat of China's Superiority Complex overtaking U.S. photonics development in the long run is very real.
I truly hope they have developed something awesome but really, China is known for saying stuff that is not true and never allowing third party benchmarks. -
koga73 I'm no expert but seems like this wouldn't make much of a difference because you still need a photo receiver and need to process the light signals into data. So you're basically just replacing the electral traces with fiber optics. The speed of electrons over a wire is fast enough. Unless the light is traveling over a long distance I don't see the benefit.Reply -
Reace Why do we keep publishing fake claims of Chinese innovation that ALWAYS turn out to be half true or not trye at all?Reply -
bolweval
Just in case...Reace said:Why do we keep publishing fake claims of Chinese innovation that ALWAYS turn out to be half true or not trye at all?