POET Receives Lightwave Award for Outstanding AI Hardware at OFC Conference

TORONTO, April 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POET Technologies Inc. ("POET" or the "Company") (TSX Venture: PTK; NASDAQ: POET), a leader in the design and implementation of highly integrated optical engines and light sources for artificial intelligence networks, today announced that its executive team accepted the Elite Score award from Lightwave+BTR Innovation Reviews at an exclusive gala reception held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California on Monday night. The reception took place on the eve of the annual Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) Conference.

Accepting the award on behalf of the Company were POET Chairman & CEO Dr. Suresh Venkatesan and Chief Revenue Officer Raju Kankipati. A panel of judges, comprised of experts from the optical communications and broadband communities, recognized the POET Optical Interposer™ as an innovative advancement that will have a significant impact on the industry.

“We couldn’t ask for a better way to start our 2025 OFC experience than to collect this meaningful award,” Venkatesan commented. “Knowing that a recognized authority in our industry has judged our technology as one of the best on the market provides a strong amount of momentum heading into the next few days.”

POET has previously announced that it will demonstrate its latest innovations at the OFC conference. These include POET Teralight™, a line of 1.6T highly integrated transmit and receive optical engines and the new POET Blazar™, an advanced light source solution that will be viewable by invitation only. Among the customers whose products are scheduled to be showcased with POET’s products already integrated is Adtran, which commended the Company on its accolade.

“POET is deserving of industry recognition because of the innovation they have achieved with their optical engines. We value their efforts in helping us to create a next-generation optical module that addresses the demand for greater connectivity,” said Ross Saunders, General Manager, Adtran Optical Engines. Adtran will demo its highly integrated Quattro 100G LR4 in its private demo room that features POET’s optical engines.

The Lightwave+BTR award recognized the inventiveness and applicability of the POET Optical Interposer, the foundation for the Company’s highly integrated silicon-based optical engines and light sources that are designed to power AI hardware applications and data center hyperscalers to the next level of speed and performance.

The trophy will be displayed alongside POET’s other recent awards at the Company’s OFC Booth (#5315) through the conference, which ends on April 3, 2025.

About POET Technologies Inc.

POET is a design and development company offering high-speed optical modules, optical engines and light source products to the artificial intelligence systems market and to hyperscale data centers.  POET's photonic integration solutions are based on the POET Optical Interposer™, a novel, patented platform that allows the seamless integration of electronic and photonic devices into a single chip using advanced wafer-level semiconductor manufacturing techniques. POET's Optical Interposer-based products are lower cost, consume less power than comparable products, are smaller in size and are readily scalable to high production volumes. In addition to providing high-speed (800G, 1.6T and above) optical engines and optical modules for AI clusters and hyperscale data centers, POET has designed and produced novel light source products for chip-to-chip data communication within and between AI servers, the next frontier for solving bandwidth and latency problems in AI systems.  POET's Optical Interposer platform also solves device integration challenges in 5G networks, machine-to-machine communication, self-contained "Edge" computing applications and sensing applications, such as LIDAR systems for autonomous vehicles.  POET is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with operations in Allentown, PA, Shenzhen, China, and Singapore.  More information about POET is available on our website at .

About Lightwave+BTR

Bringing over 36 years of trusted technical insights to today's optical communications professionals. Through our integrated media portfolio, Lightwave delivers content focused on fiber optics and optoelectronics, the technologies that enable the growth, integration and improved performance of voice, data and video communications networks and services. Our experienced editorial team provides trusted technology, application and market insights to corporate executives, department heads, project managers, network engineers and technical managers at equipment suppliers, service providers and major end-user organizations. Our unique ability to inform our audience’s business-critical decisions is based in our 35+ year relationship with the entire optical community—technology vendors, communications carriers and major enterprises—and our recognition of the interplay among its members. Lightwave’s media portfolio includes the  email newsletter and magazine.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking information" (within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws) and "forward-looking statements" (within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Such statements or information are identified with words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "plan", "intend", "potential", "estimate", "propose", "project", "outlook", "foresee" or similar words suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding any potential outcome. Such statements include the Company's expectations with respect to the success of the Company's product development efforts, the performance of its products, operations, meeting revenue targets, and the expectation of continued success in the financing efforts, the capability, functionality, performance and cost of the Company's technology as well as the market acceptance, inclusion and timing of the Company's technology in current and future products and expectations regarding its successful development of high speed transceiver solutions and its penetration of the Artificial Intelligence hardware markets.

Such forward-looking information or statements are based on a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions which may cause actual results or other expectations to differ materially from those anticipated and which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the completion of its development efforts with its customers, the ability to build working prototypes to the customer’s specifications, and the size, future growth and needs of Artificial Intelligence network suppliers. Actual results could differ materially due to a number of factors, including, without limitation, the failure to produce optical engines on time and within budget, the failure of Artificial Intelligence networks to continue to grow as expected, the failure of the Company's products to meet performance requirements for AI and datacom networks, operational risks in the completion of the Company's projects, the ability of the Company to generate sales for its products, and the ability of its customers to deploy systems that incorporate the Company's products. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information or statements are reasonable, prospective investors in the Company's securities should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because the Company can provide no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking information and statements contained in this news release are as of the date of this news release and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise this forward-looking information and statements except as required by law.

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