Overcoming the energy tax on AI

Sustainability targets are no longer discretionary commitments; they are binding constraints imposed by investors, senior leadership, and network engineers. And both telecom networks and data centers matter. The latest data from OFC 2026 makes it clear that power consumption is the biggest challenge for new networks. Companies such as NVIDIA, Cisco, Broadcom, Marvell, and Coherent are exploring co-packaged and linear architectures because traditional ways of handling optics use too much energy. While some new tech is hitting sub-picojoule efficiency levels or saving 97 percent on power in specific network types, other areas are struggling…