Huawei Hi-One NPO Turns to ILS with Redundant Laser as High-Power Laser Supply Runs Short

Based on on-site information from the OCP Global Summit 2026 and interpretations from optical communications insiders, Huawei made targeted design adjustments to its optical interconnect scheme due to a shortage of high-power lasers: unable to source lasers above 300mW in volume, Huawei's Hi-One NPO uses an ILS (integrated laser source) at 100-150mW with an extra redundant laser in case the primary one fails. This is worth watching, because it shows laser supply capability is directly shaping major vendors' NPO technology roadmaps.

Confirmed

• Huawei's Hi-One NPO uses an ILS integrated laser source with one redundant laser (zephyrz9 citing the OCP on-site recap, m1)
• The ILS-plus-redundancy design stems from being unable to source lasers above 300mW in volume, forcing a fallback to 100-150mW devices (as relayed by zephyrz9 and bookwormengr, m2/m3)
• The 3.2T VCSEL solution is a 32×112G optical engine (m2 caption info)
• zephyrz9 made an important correction: Hi-One NPO does not use VCSELs; the VCSEL solution is a separate Huawei 3.2T product line (m5)

Not yet confirmed

• bookwormengr mentioned in the discussion that the VCSELs may be microVCSELs; the specific device type is unconfirmed (m4)

Why it matters

• The laser supply bottleneck directly dictates NPO architecture trade-offs; the redundant laser is a design compensation for the reliability risk of lower-power devices
• bookwormengr pointed out that intra-data-center AI interconnect distances are short (leaf/spine switch spans are mostly under 50 meters), where VCSELs are entirely sufficient — CW DFB is only a hard requirement beyond 50 meters. This gives Chinese vendors a rational basis for sidestepping high-power laser scarcity via the ILS/VCSEL route
• The correction (m5) is a reminder: when discussing Huawei's optical interconnect roadmap, distinguish Hi-One NPO (ILS) from the 3.2T VCSEL line — two independent product lines that should not be conflated

2026-10-19 ~ 2026-10-19 · 6 related posts

• [source] Huawei's Hi-One NPO uses ILS with a redundant laser; scarce 300mW+ laser supply drives Chinese vendors' choice — zephyr_z9 · 2026-10-19
• AI datacenter optics: VCSEL good enough under 50m, Chinese players pivot to ILS over scarce 300mW lasers — bookwormengr · 2026-10-19
• [source] Correction: Huawei's HI-ONE NPO isn't VCSEL — it ships a separate 3.2T VCSEL product — zephyr_z9 · 2026-10-19
• [source] OCP attendees split on CPO/NPO light sources: external CW lasers (ELSFP) vs micro-VCSEL — bookwormengr · 2026-10-19
• Huawei's 3.2T VCSEL NPO: forced into redundant ILS design due to laser supply limits — zephyr_z9 · 2026-10-19
• Huawei forced into InP ILS optical design by limited access to high-power lasers — bookwormengr · 2026-10-19