From 1.6T becoming real to AI reshaping how networks are built and run, here’s a look at the milestones that defined Ciena’s 2025.
One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is to take a moment and look back at all that has happened, both personally (spoiler alert—my kids have once again taken over my playlist) and professionally. 2025 was another milestone year at Ciena. Unsurprisingly, the news that rose to the top was centered on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This year, AI became the driving force behind new architectures, the advancement of autonomous operations, and the catalyst for new monetization opportunities. As Ciena’s Brodie Gage said, “Artificial Intelligence is not just another application riding on today’s networks—it is a transformational force that demands the reinvention of networks themselves.”
From unmatched innovation in optical networking to AI-driven operations, here’s a look back at the highlights that defined 2025.
1.6 Tb/s is here: A new chapter for network performance
This year, 1.6 Tb/s went from “future milestone” to commercial reality. Although WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) first became available in late 2024, adoption surged in 2025 as operators achieved unprecedented speed and distance records. By the end of FY25, 72 customers worldwide were utilizing WL6e to take advantage of its unprecedented performance and economic benefits.
Want more of a look back on the journey to 1.6T? Check out this blog and our photo album of how we got there, showcasing the evolution from early lab innovation to record-breaking global deployments.
Advancements in and around the data center
AI workloads are driving exponential growth in data transport within, between, to, and from data centers. This year, we expanded our solutions to address connectivity needs not only across metro, long-haul, and subsea but also within data center campuses and inside the data center itself—what we call “in and around the data center.”
At NANOG 94, Meta presented an innovative new approach to addressing the growing complexity of out-of-band management networks. Our data center out-of-band management solution (DCOM), developed in close collaboration with Meta, reflects a shared vision for simplifying and modernizing OOB infrastructure at scale. We have already seen great success and garnered a strong industry reaction, with the solution recently winning two awards!
To further expand our opportunity inside the data center, we also announced the acquisition of Nubis Communications. Nubis’ high-bandwidth interconnect technologies complement Ciena’s existing portfolio and enable new levels of capacity and power efficiencies for scale-up and scale-out data center applications driven by rapidly growing AI workloads.
And at OFC 2025, we featured industry-first coherent optical and IMDD technologies, such as 1.6T Coherent-Lite pluggable transceivers that bring new levels of scale and flexibility to data center designs and 448Gb/s PAM4 transmission, paving the way for next-gen 3.2T interconnect.
The rise of neoscalers to support the AI era
Another major shift this year was the rise of neoscalers - which include a range of AI specialists including AI model developers and GPU-as-a-service providers. Separate from the hyperscalers, neoscalers are part of an expanding ecosystem of network operators building infrastructure for AI, including cloud and edge service providers as well as data center and colocation providers. As AI demands accelerate, neoscalers are building their own highly scalable networks to fuel business growth.
Across the board, neoscalers face three consistent challenges: scaling capacity efficiently, simplifying complexity, and accelerating time-to-market. In 2025, we demonstrated how our optical portfolio—combined with deep network build and managed operations expertise from Ciena Services—can help them meet these demands with confidence.
Coherent routing breakthroughs and new product momentum
2025 brought the next frontier of coherent routing, driven by new platforms and expanded capabilities:
Ciena’s 8192: Our first 800GbE router, delivering massive scalability and operational efficiency for high-capacity applications.
WaveRouter Family: Now powered by WL6e, WaveRouter became the world’s first available 1.6T coherent router—a milestone we showcased at OFC 2025. We also announced a world-first trial in August, using Ciena’s innovative WaveRouter and WaveLogic 6 Extreme solutions, DFA successfully transmitted 1.6 Tbps over a single wavelength—setting a new performance benchmark for IP/optical convergence.
These innovations enable operators to deploy a simplified, converged IP/Optical architecture across metro, long-haul, and even submarine networks—delivering unprecedented scale with lower energy consumption and operational overhead.
The rise of autonomous networks
In 2025, Ciena and Blue Planet advanced the industry’s path toward autonomous networking with new AI-driven operational capabilities.
Blue Planet’s new Agentic AI Framework marked a significant leap forward—empowering AI agents that act with intent, apply context, and take coordinated actions across your entire network. They do this on top of a converged data model that simplifies how data is cleaned and organized—keeping AI properly informed. It’s an approach that combines our decades of telco expertise, OSS transformation successes, a federated data foundation, and advanced agentic AI capabilities to unlock the full value of autonomous networking.
Figure 1. Blue Planet’s Agentic AI Framework
This approach integrates with network control layer agentic AI capabilities, such as those unveiled by Ciena’s Navigator Network Control Suite (Navigator NCS), and featuring its AI Assistant, a GenAI-based natural language interface.
And analytics-informed lifecycle services help to bring the autonomous networking promise to reality.
Figure 2. Ciena’s Navigator AI Assistant provides an easy interface to help troubleshoot network issues
Continuing our leadership in optical
Beyond 1.6T achievements, we delivered additional portfolio expansions and demonstrations that advanced the state of optical networking this year:
Emergence of 800G pluggables
WaveLogic 6 Nano became generally available in 2025, playing a key role in supporting the expansion and distribution of data center network architectures. We demonstrated its real-world performance with an 800 Gb/s transmission over 1,050 km using a third-party switch—from the SC25 show floor to Chicago and back—the longest 800G pluggable demo to date and a strong validation of Ciena’s coherent innovation.
Quantum-safe communications
It is becoming increasingly clear that the shift toward quantum-safe communications is not optional—it is inevitable. This year we showed how Ciena's innovative encryption solutions are already helping operators protect sensitive data and paving the path for what’s next—with the industry’s only 1.6T encryption offering, and a solution that supports both QKD and PQC. With the advancements in quantum security still evolving, I’m excited to see what is still to come.
New energy-efficient edge platforms
We also expanded the Waveserver family with the brand-new purpose-built Waveserver E-Series that align with Waveserver’s modern software stream—supporting openness and simplified provisioning for rapid service turn-up and easy integration into your existing operations. These compact, hardened platforms extend the Waveserver family all the way to the customer premises, giving you the tools to efficiently support multi-service aggregation and deliver wavelength services using less space, power, and cost than traditional solutions.
AI monetization
An important theme this year was how network operators can monetize the growing demand around AI. Service providers are increasingly exploring managed optical fiber networks (MOFN), wholesale AI connectivity, and enterprise AI enablement as new revenue opportunities.
As a strategic partner, we worked with customers throughout 2025 to identify and enable these opportunities. Our Wave Services Report, for example, explores how wave services are evolving to meet the needs of a rapidly transforming global landscape. With capacity demands shifting rapidly, now is the time for operators to lay the groundwork for new AI-driven revenue streams.
Looking ahead
2025 was a year defined by industry firsts, breakthrough products, and deep customer collaboration, strengthening the foundation for AI-era networking. As we move into 2026, the network will continue evolving at an extraordinary pace, and you can expect Ciena to keep pushing boundaries and enabling the future of connectivity.