Tower Semiconductor and Salience Labs partner to manufacture optical circuit switches for AI data centers

Tower Semiconductor and Salience Labs announced a partnership to manufacture photonic integrated circuit based optical circuit switches for AI data centers. The collaboration was revealed on February 25, 2026, in Migdal Haemek, Israel, and Oxford, England. It advances the project from development into a production readiness phase for deployment in AI facilities. The effort draws on Tower's silicon photonics platforms PH18DA with integrated III-V lasers and TPS45PH with low loss nitride waveguides. Salience Labs seeks to provide optical connectivity with low latency, high bandwidth and lower power for AI workloads. According to Dell'Oro Group, data center switch spending in AI back end networks will exceed 100 billion dollars by 2030 amid rising deployments across multiple domains. Vaysh Kewada, founder, chief executive and director of Salience Labs, said Tower is a key partner for the silicon photonics and switching platforms. Dr. Ed Preisler, vice president and general manager of the RF business unit at Tower Semiconductor, said the work supports scaling of optical connectivity for AI infrastructure. Both firms will attend the OFC 2026 Conference in Los Angeles from March 17 to 19.