Coherent Expands Pluggable Optical Line Systems with Full C-Band Amplification, Enabling 800G, 25.6Tbps AI Data Center Connectivity

September 20, 2026

Markets Insider USA

Overview

Coherent has expanded its portfolio of Pluggable Optical Line Systems (POLS) with full C-band amplification to power AI data center networks. The enhanced POLS supports up to 32 DWDM wavelengths on a single fiber pair, delivering up to 25.6Tbps of AI data center traffic over links ranging from 2km to 200km. By integrating key optical transmission functions into QSFP modules, which plug directly into standard transceiver sockets, Coherent addresses the high-capacity interconnect requirements of internet service providers and AI infrastructure operators, significantly enhancing data center scalability for explosive AI workloads.

In Depth

Key Findings

Coherent has significantly expanded its Pluggable Optical Line Systems (POLS) portfolio, now featuring full C-band amplification, to directly address the escalating demands of AI data center networks. This augmented product line supports up to 32 DWDM wavelengths on a single fiber pair, achieving an impressive 25.6Tbps of AI data center traffic over link distances spanning 2km to 200km. This capability is crucial for efficiently and economically managing the massive data volumes generated by modern AI workloads.

Technical / Clinical Details

The expanded POLS solutions incorporate an innovative design that integrates key optical transmission functionalities, such as amplifiers and optical supervisory channels, directly into QSFP modules. This allows for plug-and-play operation, where modules can be directly inserted into standard transceiver sockets, thereby substantially simplifying data center deployment and management. The full C-band amplification maximizes the utilization of the entire C-band spectrum, enabling more DWDM channels and extracting maximum capacity from existing fiber infrastructure. The flexible support for link distances from 2km to 200km caters to a wide array of AI infrastructure requirements, from campus-wide data center interconnects to metropolitan area networks.

Background & Context

The rapid advancement of AI is creating unprecedented bandwidth requirements for interconnectivity between data centers. Traditional optical modules and fixed line systems often struggle to keep pace with the surging traffic or incur prohibitive installation and operational costs. Coherent’s pluggable POLS solutions offer a compelling answer by providing flexible, on-demand capacity precisely where it’s needed. By embedding sophisticated optical functions within a QSFP form factor, data center operators gain the agility to rapidly scale their networks in response to fluctuating AI compute resource demands.

Strategic Significance & Outlook

This expansion of the POLS portfolio represents a critical offering for internet service providers, cloud hosting providers, and AI infrastructure operators seeking to meet their high-capacity interconnect needs. Coherent continues to innovate across optical modules, subsystems, and materials to address the explosive growth in data traffic driven by the AI supercycle. This technology is poised to become a standard in AI-era network infrastructure, promising positive impacts on data center efficiency, scalability, and operational expenditure.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/coherent-expands-pluggable-optical-line-systems-portfolio-with-full-c-band-amplification-to-enable-ai-datacenter-networks-1036555022

Get our weekly technology intelligence — free

Receive an infographic that lets you judge at a glance whether each field’s analysis report is worth reading.

Subscribe Free — Weekly Tech Intelligence

By subscribing, you’ll receive Troy-Technical’s weekly technology intelligence newsletter.