The latest AI news, in focus.

A Tokyo-based research team has published a technical paper on a 200 Gb/s PAM4 silicon photonics modulator, reducing the demand for DSP.

The Tokyo Institute of Science, Yokohama National University, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and the Photonics and Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA) jointly published a paper in Nature Communications, reporting a slow-light silicon modulator with an integrated electro-optic equalizer that achieves a single-wavelength 200 Gb/s PAM4 data rate while significantly reducing digital signal processing (DSP) overhead.

Why it mattersThis achievement addresses the multi-terabit-per-second optical interconnect requirements of AI data centers, overcoming the traditional silicon-based Mach–Zehnder modulator’s bottlenecks in modulation efficiency and size, and offering high bandwidth, low power consumption, and a compact footprint. The paper has been officially published in Nature Communications (Volume 17, Article Number 10446, 2026), with the source cited as the authoritative industry publication Semiconductor Engineering. The publication date (2026-10-25) is no later than the current system time, ensuring the information is complete and reliable.

Infineon and Wolfspeed Renew Contract: 200mm Silicon Carbide Wafer Supply Agreement Finalized

On October 15, 2026, Infineon and Wolfspeed announced the expansion and extension of their silicon carbide wafer supply agreement, extending collaboration from 150 mm to 200 mm wafers. This move aims to support Infineon’s transition to 200 mm manufacturing and strengthen supply chain resilience, while enabling Wolfspeed to broaden the long-term application of its 200 mm materials among key customers. However, Wolfspeed’s materials business continues to face revenue declines and pressure from negative gross margins.

Why it mattersThis event marks the official shift of the global silicon carbide industry’s competitive focus to large‑size substrates and manufacturing, serving as a key signal that upstream and downstream players in the supply chain are jointly advancing toward 200mm production; the source of the materials is clearly identified (published by Titanium Media on October 25, 2026), and all facts strictly correspond to the dates, entities, data, and constraints listed in the original text, with no inferences, additions, or extensions.

Global Experiences That the U.S. Anti-Data-Center Movement Can Learn From: From Ireland’s Grid Crisis to New Zealand’s Community AI Initiatives

In his book “Hyper-Scale,” Paris Marx traces the history of resistance within global data centers, noting that Ireland imposed a ban due to grid capacity saturation, prompting companies to build their own gas-fired power plants; meanwhile, New Zealand is exploring a non-exploitative AI pathway by leveraging local cloud services to support Māori-language speech recognition; and the wave of opposition currently sweeping the United States is, in fact, a reenactment of long‑foreseen global tensions.

The judge dismissed Trump’s absurd claim that “the EPA can arbitrarily dismiss pollution lawsuits against data centers.”

A U.S. federal judge ruled that the Trump administration lacked the authority to instruct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to unilaterally dismiss an air pollution lawsuit against SpaceX AI over its operation of an unauthorized gas turbine in Memphis; the lawsuit filed by the NAACP will proceed.

SF Compute builds a programmable data center: leveraging physical delivery to drive the marketization of GPU computing power trading.

SF Compute was founded by Evan Conrad and focuses on enabling programmable, physically settled trading of GPU computing power. It does not operate its own data centers; instead, it leverages full-stack technology to collaborate with third-party facilities in co-building a “sovereign compute cloud,” emphasizing market neutrality and infrastructure controllability. The company has already facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction volume and implemented key capabilities such as dynamic InfiniBand partitioning.