Integrated photonics and the age of intelligent machines

Photonics and artificial intelligence are becoming deeply intertwined. I will discuss how photonic integration is delivering the interconnect density and performance that AI infrastructure demands, while AI-driven automation accelerates hardware R&D in return. Looking further ahead, integrated photonics extends beyond datacenters to brain–machine interfaces, where computation meets cognition.

Speaker bio:

Joyce Poon is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. From May 2024 until December 2025, she was the Head of Photonics Architecture at Lightmatter. From 2018 until July 2024, she served as Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics.

Prof. Poon and her team have worked on a wide range of topics in silicon photonics, with applications in communications, neurotechnology, and sensing.

Prof. Poon obtained the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2007 and the B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science (physics option) from the University of Toronto in 2002. She is an Optica Fellow and a Fellow of the IEEE.