Industry leaders celebrated for driving optical innovation across Europe

Product Focus

Eight leading companies have been honoured with prestigious awards for standout innovations in optical connectivity at the ECOC Exhibition’s Industry Awards 2026 ceremony yesterday in Málaga, Spain.

The awards highlighted major progress across optical modules, test and measurement, fibre infrastructure, and access networks that are powering Europe’s next generation of connectivity – including photonics, quantum computing, and AI data centres.

Awards were presented to Avicena Tech, China Telecom, Ciena, Corning Optical Communications, Furukawa Electric, Keysight Technologies, Lumentum, and Semtech Corporation, recognising their outstanding contributions to the evolution of Europe’s optical communications industry.

“Congratulations to this year’s winners of the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards 2026 for their contributions and innovations to the optical communications industry,” said Michael Lebby, Awards Committee Chairman at the ECOC Exhibition. “It is great to see such strong momentum across the industry as new challenges and opportunities emerge from the sectors of photonics, quantum computing, fibre infrastructure and AI data centres.”

The full list of categories and winning products of the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards can be found below:

• • • Best Optical Module – Ciena’s Vesta 200 6.4T CPX
    • Best Optical Test & Measurement Process – Keysight Technologies’ Keysight N4378A Lightwave Component Analyzer (LCA) – 220 GHz
    • Fibre Infrastructure Innovation – Furukawa Electric’s Snap‑Beam Connector: Compact, Detachable Optical Connector for PIC Integration
    • Optical Access Innovation – China Telecom’s Industrial Network All‑Optical Intelligent Connectivity (Industrial PON)
    • Optical Communication Innovation – Corning Optical Communications’ Corning® CPO FlexConnect™ Fiber
    • Optical Component (Chip/Wafer) Innovation – Semtech Corporation’s 224 Gbps per Lane TIA Family for Linear Pluggable Optics (GN1834L/DL and GN1838DL)
    • Optical Component (Package/OSA/Fibre) Innovation – Lumentum’s VCSEL‑Based FOWLP Optical Engine for AI Scale‑Up Networks

Further accolades were also received by two companies in the Post Deadline Awards:

• • • Higher optical communications value chain technology & products – China Telecom’s Optical Access Network ‘Network-Compute-Intelligence’ Integrated Intelligent Interconnection
    • Lower optical communications value chain technology & products – Avicena Tech’s LightBundle™ eKit: 1Tbps Evaluation Kit for microLED-based interconnects

The ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards continue to spotlight the technologies and companies shaping the future of optical communications. As global networks evolve to meet the demands of AI, cloud, and high‑capacity connectivity, this year’s winners showcase the innovation and engineering excellence driving the sector’s next chapter.