On October 19, the 2026 Global Optical Fiber and Cable Conference opened in Wuhan. Researchers, leading companies and industry associations discussed how surging compute demand is forcing iteration of optical networks, noting that multi-core fiber, photoelectric deterministic networks and 1.6T optical modules are moving toward commercial use, while the industry still faces challenges such as supply-demand mismatch, overexpansion, high-end technology gaps and trade environment disruptions.
At the 2026 Global Optical Fiber and Cable Conference, the world's first international standard for multicore fiber was officially released, jointly drafted by FiberHome, Hengtong Optic-Electric, ZTT, Yongding, Far East Communication, and Shanghai University. The standard specifies technical conditions for multicore fiber geometry, transmission characteristics, mechanical and environmental performance, promoting weak-coupling multicore fiber from laboratory trials to large-scale commercial use.
China's next-generation hollow-core optical fiber has entered commercial use between intelligent computing centers in Zhongwei, Ningxia, reducing transmission latency and loss by over 30%. This month, communications engineers deployed the fiber on a large scale for the first time between data centers 30 kilometers apart in Zhongwei, addressing the ultra-high latency caused by distances of over a thousand kilometers to computing demand hubs like the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.