OFC 2026 Opens Next Week in Los Angeles With Sold-Out Exhibition, as AI-Driven Network Demand Fuels Surge of Major Product Debuts and Breakthrough Innovations

LOS ANGELES, March 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2026 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC), the world’s largest annual gathering for optical networking and communications professionals, takes place next week at the Los Angeles Convention Center (15–19 March 2026, Exhibition: 17–19 March).

With the exhibit hall sold out, OFC 2026 is set to be one of the largest to date, with an expected 16,000 attendees from 90 countries and more than 700 exhibiting companies convening in Los Angeles for a week of product debuts, technical milestones and industry collaboration. The program will also feature 130 invited and tutorial speakers and 45 presentations across three exhibition theaters.

From startups to established global brands, OFC’s exhibit floor will spotlight the technologies shaping next-generation networks, including systems, silicon photonics, lasers, optical modules, components and the test and measurement tools that support performance at scale.

“We are witnessing a pivotal time for the industry, as AI-driven growth accelerates the need for higher bandwidth and better power efficiency,” said OFC General Chair Johannes Fischer, Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Inst., Germany. “The sold-out exhibit floor and broad global participation underscore how urgently the ecosystem is advancing new solutions, and how quickly they’re moving toward deployment.”

OFC gives attendees a chance to compare approaches side by side, connect directly with the engineers and product teams behind them and better understand which technologies are ready for near-term deployment and which are still taking shape.

Exhibitor Announcements Set to Debut in Los Angeles

With the industry convening in one place, OFC expects a strong slate of exhibitor news and product updates across the optical communications ecosystem, including announcements submitted through OFC’s First News program (an advance preview of exhibitor announcements for media and analysts). A selection includes:

• Acacia – Acacia will highlight its coherent pluggables and client optics portfolio, including field-proven 400G products and the industry’s first 800GZR+ with interop PCS for AI-era networking.
• Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (AOI) – AOI will showcase its readiness for CPO and NPO architectures with transceivers through 1.6T, 6.4T on-board optics demos and a new narrow-linewidth pump laser.
• CEA-Leti – CEA-Leti and NcodiN will announce a strategic collaboration to industrialize optical interposer technology on a 300 mm photonics process for next-generation semiconductors and AI chips.
• LightSpeed Photonics – LightSpeed Photonics will launch what it calls the industry’s first solderable near-packaged optical interconnect technology, positioned as a low-power alternative between CPO and LPO.
• OIF – OIF will bring multi-vendor interoperability to life with 40 member companies demonstrating the building blocks behind AI-era data center networks, from coherent optics to CEI-224G, live 448G, CMIS and co-packaging.
• Semtech – Semtech will unveil a new family of 224G per lane TIAs and MZM drivers built for the shift toward linear optical interconnects across 800G, 1.6T and 3.2T architectures.
• Taara – Taara will unveil Taara Photonics and Taara Beam, a solid-state wireless optical communications platform based on optical phased arrays.
• VIAVI Solutions – VIAVI will showcase validation tools for next-generation AI fabrics, including demos focused on 1.6T Ethernet, PCIe over optics and high-density test capabilities.
  
  

Plenary Spotlights AI, Optical Innovation and Optical Networks in Space

The OFC Plenary Session takes place on Tuesday, 17 March (08:00–10:00 PDT) at the JW Marriott next to the Los Angeles Convention Center, featuring:

• Julie Sheridan Eng, Chief Technology Officer, Coherent
• Alexis Bjorlin, Senior Vice President, AI Infrastructure, NVIDIA
• Siegbert Martin, Chief Technology Officer, Tesat-Spacecom
  
  

Registration and information

For registration, exhibitor details and the schedule-at-a-glance, visit OFCConference.org.

About OFC
The Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC) is the world’s largest event for optical communications and networking professionals — a showcase for the trends and technologies that impact how the world communicates and transacts. It is the locus for scientific visionaries and the industry’s biggest brands to make connections and move business forward. For more than 50 years, participants from all corners of the globe have been drawn to OFC by its high-impact, peer-reviewed research, dynamic business programs and the world’s largest in-person exhibition for optical communications.

OFC is co-sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society (IEEE/ComSoc) and the IEEE Photonics Society and co-sponsored and managed by Optica.

OFC takes place 15 – 19 March 2026 (Exhibition: 17–19 March), at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California, USA. Learn more at OFCConference.org or follow @OFC-Conference on LinkedIn and X (#OFC26).

Media Contact
media@ofcconference.org

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a8729e5f-dd0d-4927-8702-ed6a419850c7