IOWN Global Forum's 2025 Member Meeting in Sweden Celebrates Significant Advancements
The Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) Global Forum, a collaborative initiative launched in 2020 by NTT, Intel, Sony, and other members, is making significant strides in developing next-generation communication and computing infrastructure. The Forum's vision aims to revolutionize technology by 2030 through the deployment of photonics-electronics convergence devices.
The IOWN Global Forum's Vision 2030 Roadmap centers on building an all-photonics network infrastructure that replaces conventional electronic connections with photonic connections. This technology dramatically lowers power consumption while improving responsiveness and scalability. Key goals include achieving carbon neutrality, developing end-to-end photonic network solutions, and commercializing IOWN infrastructure for enterprise use.
Progress towards these goals includes the 2023 introduction of IOWN 1.0 commercial services, marking the transition from R&D to real-world deployment. The Forum has also expanded its membership, now boasting over 160 member organizations, indicating broad industry engagement and collaboration. Integration of photonic technology with renewable energy strategies to improve sustainability in telecom and IT infrastructure is another significant achievement.
Håkan Jevrell, Sweden's State Secretary to Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, gave a keynote address discussing the importance of future-proofing businesses with next-generation technologies. A special panel, moderated by industry experts, discussed how advanced network infrastructure will help future-proof diverse sectors.
The IOWN Global Forum's mission is to deliver a smart, sustainable, and secure world for all. As part of this mission, the Forum is expanding its focus to include quantum innovation. More than 250 delegates attended the recent 2025 Annual Member Meeting of the IOWN Global Forum, held in Stockholm, where the Forum shared its latest plans to deliver the networks of the future.
An energy efficiency panel discussion was held, discussing the Forum's work to create a sustainable and high-performance compute and network infrastructure. The Forum's Vision 2030 Roadmap was also discussed during the meeting.
For media inquiries, contact Joe Hatt at [email protected]. The IOWN Global Forum's website is IOWN Global Forum - Innovative Optical and Wireless Network.
Dr. Katsuhiko Kawazoe, President and Chairperson of the IOWN Global Forum, commented that the Forum is fast broadening its use cases to develop innovation opportunities across industries. Special guests joined the IOWN Global Forum to provide a wider political and industry context to its work.
The IOWN Global Forum is positioned as foundational infrastructure for a next-generation Internet, where technology connections are effectively invisible but highly efficient and responsive, thus enabling transformative applications in AI, IoT, smart cities, and data-intensive services. With the commercial availability of IOWN services and growing ecosystem support, the IOWN Global Forum is moving closer to its vision of revolutionizing global communication and computing networks by 2030.
- The IOWN Global Forum's Vision 2030 Roadmap includes a focus on developing end-to-end photonic network solutions for enterprise use, aiming to revolutionize technology by 2030.
- The Forum is expanding its focus to include quantum innovation, as evidenced by the recent 2025 Annual Member Meeting in Stockholm, which attracted over 250 delegates.
- The Forum's mission is to deliver a smart, sustainable, and secure world, and they are making strides in this direction by working towards creating a sustainable and high-performance compute and network infrastructure.
- The IOWN Global Forum's work in energy efficiency and the development of a next-generation Internet is expected to enable transformative applications in fields such as AI, IoT, smart cities, and data-intensive services.
