September 14 to 16, 2026 · Stanford University
Uniting leaders, scientists, and innovators across industry, academia, and government to drive collaborative breakthroughs in photonics
James H. Clark Center, Stanford University. Photo by King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized, cropped, and darkened.
The 2026 SPRC Annual Symposium is the marquee event for the Stanford photonics community and brings together leaders from academia, industry, and government to explore the future of photonics.
Unlike a conventional technical conference, the Symposium is designed as a forum for high-level exchange and cross-community collaboration. Talks are conversation starters rather than detailed lectures, with the emphasis on strategic insight and shared challenges.
Participation is curated to foster substantive dialogue and collaboration. Attendees can expect perspectives spanning the full photonics ecosystem, including academic researchers, government labs, startups, and global technology companies.
The program is organized around two questions.
What novel applications and solutions are enabled by recent advances in photonics, from biophotonics and optical interconnects to copackaged optics, quantum systems, and metamaterials?
What technical or organizational barriers, if solved, would unlock transformative new applications and accelerate adoption?
Three days of keynotes, technical sessions, discussions, and community events.
September 14
Steve Chu
Coffee discussion
Future of compute
Lunch
Communications
Coffee discussion
Copackaged optics
Monday's sessions cover some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for AI datacenters, with topics across energy, computing, communications, and co-packaged optics.
September 15
Haisheng Rong
Coffee discussion
Materials
Lunch
Systems
Coffee discussion
Entrepreneurship & Startups
Conference dinner
Tuesday's sessions cover novel materials breakthroughs relevant for new generation packaging, heat management, and optics, as well as system-level challenges. Entrepreneurship and startup showcases are scheduled for the afternoon.
September 16
Yasaman Soudougar
Coffee discussion
Life sciences & AI
Lunch
Sensing
Coffee discussion
Future directions
Wednesday's sessions cover AI-powered and quantum technologies for life sciences and sensing, alongside advances shaping the future of photonics.
Opening keynote
Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 · Former U.S. Secretary of Energy
Stanford University
Monday, September 14
Portrait: photograph by Royal Society, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and resized.
Andy Bechtolsheim
Arista Networks
Ruslan Belikov
NASA Ames
Ameet Bhansali
Applied Materials
LK Bhupathi
Credo
Gaurang Choksi
University of Arizona
Bijoy Das
IIT Madras
Matt Deineka
Corning
Ronald Goossens
ASML
Waguih Ishak
Mojo Vision
Zoran Jandric
Seagate
Timothee Leleu
NTT
Camille Pataki
Eikon Therapeutics
Haisheng Rong
AMD
Dominik Schulten
AMS Osram
Pete Shadbolt
Psi Quantum
Yasaman Soudagar
Stealth
Hiroki Takesue
NTT
Phil Winterbottom
Marvell
John Wood
Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific
Mark Brongersma
Joonhee Choi
Jennifer Dionne
Joseph M. Kahn
Michelle Kueppers
Amir Safavi-Naeini
Olav Solgaard
Jelena Vuckovic
More speakers will be announced as the program is finalized.
September 14–16 · Stanford University
Reserve your place at the 2026 SPRC Annual Symposium through Eventbrite.
Checkout not loading? Register on Eventbrite.
Co-organizer
NTT Research invents the future of optical computing, next generation cryptography, the biodigital twins to enable precision medicine, and the physics of AI to understand how AI works.
NTT Research is the Silicon Valley-based research organization of NTT, a $90+ billion global technology and business solutions leader, serving the Fortune Global 100 and investing 30% of its profits into research and development. NTT Research operates four research groups at its facilities in Sunnyvale, California: the Physics and Informatics (PHI) Lab, the Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab, the Medical and Health Informatics (MEI) Lab, and the Physics of Artificial Intelligence (PAI) Group. NTT Research brings together scientists from leading academic and industry institutions to advance knowledge that shapes the future of technology.
Established to tackle challenges too complex, ambitious, and important for conventional R&D, NTT Research builds on 1,600+ patents and technologies that shaped the modern world. Its inventions will define the next era of human progress.
