Taipei – September 21, 2026 -- Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has unveiled a 3.2 Tbps silicon photonics optical engine capable of moving roughly 400 GB of data per second, doubling the throughput of its previous 1.6T generation.
ITRI mobilizes 20+ partners to commercialize 3.2T optical technology
The technology was showcased at the Innovation Economy Pavilion of the Taiwan Innotech Expo (TIE) 2026, held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1, where the Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs presented 64 technologies from more than 13 research institutes and industry partners. To push the 3.2T engine toward commercial deployment, ITRI has built a supply chain network of more than 20 partners covering chip design, fabrication, testing and packaging, and has worked with international firms to align technical specifications for the standard.
Optical engine replaces copper to break data center bandwidth limits
The engine transmits data using light across multiple integrated high-speed channels rather than relying on conventional copper interconnects, which are approaching bandwidth ceilings as AI computing drives up data center traffic. ITRI states the technology's 3.2 Tbps capacity is equivalent to transferring the data volume of roughly 20 4K movies, while also cutting signal loss and heat generation compared with copper-based transmission.
DiaTrack shifts dialysis monitoring from post-treatment labs to real-time analysis
DoIT-backed innovation also extended to healthcare, where ITRI developed DiaTrack, a device that detects middle-to-large-molecule uremic toxins directly from a dialysis machine's effluent port. The system analyzes toxin types and concentrations every 15 minutes during treatment, replacing a conventional process that requires blood samples to be sent to a lab and can take three hours to yield results — often after a dialysis session has already ended.
Taiwan has nearly 97,000 dialysis patients and one of the world's highest dialysis rates per capita, a population for which middle-to-large-molecule toxins are linked to chronic inflammation and cardiovascular disease. DiaTrack has completed proof-of-concept testing with National Cheng Kung University Hospital, work that earned a National Innovation Award, and a pilot deployment at the hospital is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026.