Currently, laser equipment, which used in material processing, is considered as the "laser market" by many person, appears to be quite mature and steadily growing. In other areas, photonic solutions for telecommunications and computing are typically considered part of the semiconductor field. The field is undergoing significant changes. The last one is laser fusion, which currently still has a long way to go before commercialization.

· The Intense Competition in the Laser Systems Market ·

It can be said that lasers have become a mature commodity, even kilowatt-class fiber lasers increasingly competing on price. In Western countries, it has led to a wave of mergers and acquisitions in recent years, while also turning China, the largest industrial laser systems market, into a battlefield for vicious price war.

Therefore, laser system integrators must find new markets for their products, especially in China, but not limited to China. Dr. Gu Bo, President of BOS Photonics, said that price wars will gradually evolve into competition for customized solutions. High-quality engineering teams and reliable services will bring tremendous competitive advantages to companies. Laser system suppliers are trying to differentiate themselves by highlighting technical features (such as flexible beam shaping or additional process control functions).

Dr. Gu Bo also believes that the current industry trend is that laser suppliers are more rely on consortiums and cross-border cooperation. In terms of economic weakness and reduced profits, strong cooperation between companies will replace vertical integration as the business model trend for China's industrial laser industry in the post-pandemic era. In addition, some large downstream companies have already crossed into the field of laser equipment manufacturing.

So far, the development momentum of China's laser market is well. Despite the complex and severe international geopolitical situation and the weak global and domestic economic recovery after COVID-19, China's laser market still achieved a 6.5% annual growth rate, reaching $14.43billion in 2023. He predicts that the annual growth rate of the Chinese laser market will reach to 10.2% in 2024, driving the industry's revenue to $15.9 billion.

Arnold Mayer, an analyst from Optech Consulting with decades of experience observing the laser material processing equipment market, believes that the global laser material processing systems market will grow by 2-5% in 2023, reaching a new record of $23 billion, depending on the final adjustments in the fourth quarter. Among the world's major laser equipment-consuming countries, only the United States recorded healthy growth in 2023, while Europe and China are behind. Globally, demands in the laser welding field is particularly strong, while cutting and micro-processing fields are behind.

Regarding 2024, Mayer believes that the current market trends will not change immediately, but he added that there may be positive developments, such as the recovery of the micro-processing market.

· Photonic Technology Boosts Computing Power ·

As the development prospects of photonic technology in the field of material processing slow down, its development speed in another field is accelerating: photonic computing and data communication. Compared with electronic devices, photonic components are faster and consume less energy when transmitting data. The advantages of photonic technology in processing speed and transmission rate are obvious, so the scientific community predicted the emergence of photonic computers as early as the 1980s. Bell Labs was then trying to create optical transistors.

After decades of continuous improvement of silicon-based component integration, people’s attention has turned to materials such as indium phosphide, gallium nitride, gallium arsenide and the opportunities brought by new chip packaging technologies. Many startups have received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to transform the prospects of these photonic platforms into new photonic computing and data communication solutions.

Lightmatter is an example. According to Bloomberg, the company's valuation has just reached $1.2 billion. They are developing several different technologies, including programmable photonic interconnect technology (which can make traditional chips communicate faster), photonic computing chips and their combinations. Anyone who wants to advance traditional (i.e., electronic) computing will ultimately have to provide chip-level solutions. This requires some form of cooperation with semiconductor factories to process chips, which requires billions of dollars in investment.

These pioneers in integrated photonics face many separate challenges. But all these companies will almost face one challenge: how to scale their technology in CMOS manufacturing processes. There are many pilot production lines, research institutes and organizations established to help small photonic integrators refine their manufacturing designs. However, any company that wants to seize the opportunity of the rapid growth in high-bandwidth data processing and communication needs will ultimately need to cooperate with large semiconductor factories such as GlobalFoundries or Tower Semiconductor.

· The Future of The Laser Fusion ·

Laser fusion is an amazing technology. The progress made in this field in the past 12 months is astonishing. Nevertheless, it is still too early to expect a reliable roadmap for providing nuclear fusion power to the power grid soon. Despite this, laser fusion remains a field of basic research. Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $45 million for inertial fusion energy, and the German government even promised to provide 1 billion euros in funding before 2028.

Before that, most of the funds will be used for laser research and are likely to give birth to a class of laser systems with short pulses (ns or fs), high pulse energy (J to kJ), and high repetition rates (10Hz to kHz). Of course, these systems will also use diode pumping, which will help other fields such as secondary light sources.

Research in nuclear fusion will also promote the development of components for ultra-high intensity systems such as plasma mirrors. Finally, we may see desktop accelerators for electrons, protons or neutrons that are faster than continuous fusion experiments. This will benefit materials research, healthcare and other basic research fields.