This week on Tom’s Hardware Premium: August 14, 2026 — Testing the BC-250, our interview with Intel’s Robert Hallock, and a big week for optical

Intel Arc G3 interview transcript — Intel's Senior Product Director talks new handheld chips, Arrow Lake Refresh, and RTX Spark

Hyperscalers commit nearly $2 trillion to secure AI hardware and memory — Google leads $811 billion spending surge while Apple trails at $57 billion

Optical interconnects and photonics have become a flashpoint amid the ongoing AI saga. With the limitations of copper meeting the very real demand for faster connection speeds, optics is the answer that the industry has been developing for quite some time. However, the FCC's proposed Secure Networks Act could put the deployment of silicon photonics in jeopardy. The FCC's proposal to ban new-model optical transceivers could put an already incredibly strained supply chain at risk.

With 56% of global manufacturing for optical modules shored up in China, this would pose an immediate problem, and one that the markets have already responded to in-kind. We have broken down exactly how optical became the hottest topic in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, as well as how the U.S-China trade summit next month could weaponize the technology.

But what if there were other options? The photonics supply chain remains constrained and relatively immature. Full co-packaged optics chips might not be ready for full volume production, despite Spectrum-X CPO being rolled out across Nvidia's Vera Rubin lineup. The answer, in the short-term, may be near-packaged optics, as we explain all of the comings and goings in the wild world of silicon photonics.

FCC proposes import ban on Chinese optical transceivers — blockade targets key AI interconnects as China holds 56% global market share

How optical interconnects and silicon photonics emerged as AI's next hot commodity — looming US-China summit puts photonics into the crosshairs

Near-packaged optics (NPO) gains ground as the industry hedges against CPO's growing pains

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That just about wraps up everything we've published over on Tom's Hardware Premium this week. To read the above articles and to gain access to Bench , you'll need to purchase a subscription, which we've linked above.

We'll be back next week with another roundup of exclusive Tom's Hardware Premium reads that you won't find anywhere else.

Sayem Ahmed is the Subscription Editor at Tom's Hardware. He covers a broad range of deep dives into hardware, both new and old, including the CPUs,\u00a0GPUs, and everything else that uses a semiconductor. He has worked as a professional tech journalist since 2015 and has written for Gamespot, IGN, and Dexerto. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Sayem Ahmed Social Links Navigation Subscription Editor Sayem Ahmed is the Subscription Editor at Tom's Hardware. He covers a broad range of deep dives into hardware, both new and old, including the CPUs, GPUs, and everything else that uses a semiconductor. He has worked as a professional tech journalist since 2015 and has written for Gamespot, IGN, and Dexerto.

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