The growing maturity of integrated photonics creates opportunities for the wider Dutch high-tech industry. Not only in manufacturing capabilities like specialized equipment, manufacturing, packaging and testing, but also in system integration and the next generation of products in AI infrastructure, autonomous machines and smaller optical instruments for healthcare, agrifood and defense. As photonic integrated circuits move into products, they need reliable supply chains and manufacturing processes that can deliver the required quality, quantity and price. The Dutch high-tech industry has many of the capabilities needed to support that transition, including expertise in semiconductors, high-tech equipment, precision engineering, systems development and research. Bringing these capabilities together can create high value for Dutch high-tech by making competitive products at scale. Photondelta’s Future Solutions program is designed to develop the supply chain needed for the production of photonics chips, tailored to the customer needs, at scale. It starts with what a product must deliver, then connects the research, design, manufacturing and supply-chain capabilities required to achieve it. Since no company controls every stage of the integrated-photonics value chain, this coordination helps partners address the challenges of chip development, packaging and testing together. The aim is to create a clearer route from promising technology to complete solutions that can be manufactured at scale, opening opportunities for companies across the Dutch high-tech industry. Bits&Chips’ Dutch state of semicon 2026 This article is part of the digital special edition of Bits&Chips on the Dutch state of semicon, published on 23 October 2026. Moving AI’s data The rapid growth of AI has created enormous demand for computing power and for efficient ways to move data between processors, memory, switches and data centers. Integrated photonics can help meet these demands by combining optical communication and switching functions in compact, energy-efficient components. Moving more communication functions from electrical to optical pathways can improve bandwidth density, latency and energy efficiency as cloud and AI infrastructure expands. The opportunity also extends to generating the data that AI processes. Photonic chips can make sensors smaller, cheaper and more efficient, while AI can translate their measurements into useful insights. Together, these technologies can help extract more value from data about crops, patients, industrial equipment, buildings and transport infrastructure by identifying patterns, predicting problems and supporting faster decisions. This creates a reinforcing cycle: Better sensing supplies more data, AI extracts more insight and the resulting value creates demand for further sensing. Integrated photonics supports both the collection of that information and its efficient transport to computing systems. Its role therefore grows alongside AI, from measuring the physical world to moving the data needed to understand it. Connecting AI to the physical world As AI moves beyond software and data centers into robots, autonomous systems and other machines, sensing and communication become part of a more demanding task: responding to the physical world. Unlike data center computing, where value is often measured in processing performance per euro, intelligent machines place a premium on low latency for safe, real-time decisions, small size and weight and energy efficiency that reduces battery and cooling demand. The first requirement for such cognitive robotics is perception. Integrated photonics can deliver small, efficient and lightweight lidar and other optical sensing systems for depth perception, mapping, obstacle detection and localization. Other PIC-based sensing technologies can help machines detect physical, chemical and biological properties in their surroundings. Distributed optical sensing, including fiber Bragg grat