OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS & COMPUTING
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As the traffic in the global optical communication networks becomes more dynamic, the fiber optic networks at various scales, ranging from intra-data center networks to meshed long-haul networks to transoceanic submarine networks, also need to be more flexible and resilient so that the lightpaths can be set up or modified more quickly, bandwidth provisioning can be more optimized, and the network can be better protected from environmental or human-induced disasters.
Our research focus in this area includes automatic lightpath provisioning, AI-assisted QoT estimation and prediction, margin-optimized network planning, vendor-agnostic network control and management, intent-based resource assignment, and efficient edge/cloud computing job assignment.
Team Members: Ting Wang
Publication Tag: optical networking
NEC Laboratories America is bringing a strong research presence to ECOC 2026, the European Conference on Optical Communications in Málaga, Spain. Researchers from the Optical Communications & Computing and Optical Sensing & Solutions departments will present papers, posters, and workshop talks covering
NEC Laboratories America will receive a 2026 Edison Patent Award for a patent that lets optical fiber carry both data communications and distributed sensing at once, reducing interference through counter-propagation and standard WDM filtering, validated across long distances of field fiber.
Senior Researcher Ezra Ip has been invited to present Sensors Based on Forward Transmission using the Telecom Infrastructure at CLEO 2026 in Charlotte, NC, on Monday, May 18th, from 5:30-6:00pm. He explores a compelling frontier: using existing telecom networks as environmental sensors.
Eric C. Blow of NEC Laboratories America presents a keynote at COOL Chips 29 in Tokyo, exploring multi-modal photonic computing for real-time, ultra-efficient inference. This work highlights how photonics is reshaping AI performance, enabling faster and more energy-efficient processing across next-generation
NEC Laboratories America’s Optical Networking & Sensing team will participate in OFC 2026 in Los Angeles, March 15–19, contributing to panels, workshops, and courses focused on optical sensing, multicore fibers, and next-generation high-capacity optical communication systems.
NEC Laboratories America (NECLA) was proud to join the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2025) in Copenhagen, Denmark, from September 28 to October 2. Our researchers presented cutting-edge work in distributed acoustic sensing, AI-driven fiber optics, and optical networking. From generative
We present adaptive beamforming techniques to forward-transmission multi-event vibration sensing in environments with interference and jamming. Experimental validation over 100km fiber demonstrates significant improvements on signal reconstruction, noise reduction, and interference rejection from other
The NEC Labs America Optical Networking and Sensing team is attending the 2025 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC), the premier global event for optical networking and communications. Bringing together over 13,500 attendees from 83+ countries, more than 670 exhibitors, and hundreds
The NEC Labs America team Yaowen Li, Andrea D’Amico, Yue-Kai Huang, Philip Ji, Giacomo Borraccini, Ming-Fang Huang, Ezra Ip, Ting Wang & Yue Tian (Not pictured: Fatih Yaman) has arrived in San Diego, CA for OFC24! Our team will be speaking and presenting throughout the event. Read more for an overview
Moore’s law is dead, as we have squeezed all the innovation out of silicon. Fiber optics is the solution to meet the computing needs of tomorrow. Today, we can already use the light traveling inside fiber optic cables as sensors that measure vibrations, sound, temperature, light, and pressure changes.
NEC Corporation has deployed an AI-based traffic monitoring system to Central Nippon Expressway Company Limited (NEXCO CENTRAL). The system uses fiber-optic sensing and AI technologies to visualize traffic conditions, such as the location, speed, and direction of travel, from vibrations produced by vehicle