Special Issue on “Optics for AI and AI for Optics”

We live in an era of information explosion and digital revolution that has resulted in rapid technological developments in different aspects of life. Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in this digital transformation. AI applications require edge cloud computing with low latency connections, where the significant challenge is that it needs a lot of computer processing power. Recently, the implementation of AI based on optics hardware [1–5] has become a popular topic due to its fundamentally lower power consumption and faster computation. On the other hand, as the underlying basis of modern tele-and data-communications, optical networking becomes more and more complex, driven by more data and more connections. Generating, transmitting, and recovering such high-volume data requires advanced signal processing and networking technologies with high performance and cost-and-power efficiency. AI is especially useful for optimization and performance prediction for systems that exhibit complex behaviors [6–20]. In this aspect, traditional signal processing algorithms may not be as efficient as AI algorithms. AI methods have recently entered the field of optics, ranging from quantum mechanics to nanophotonic, optical communication, and optical networks.The Special Issue is launched to bring optics and AI together to address the challenges that each face, which are difficult to address alone. There are 12 selected contributions for the special session, representing the fascinating progress in the combined area of optics and AI, ranging from photonic neural network (NN) architecture [5] to AI-enabled advances in …