Finchetto, a company working to develop a fully optical passive network switch, was awarded a Contract for Innovation through United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI). Through the project, Finchetto will further develop its PICs and see its technology deployed in a commercial pilot program, marking a key milestone in bringing optical networking into the real world. Finchetto’s fully optical passive network switch is able to deliver a 20× reduction in power requirements and a 40× reduction in latency when compared to current electronic switches. Courtesy of Finchetto. Finchetto’s optical network switch, capable of both circuit and packet switching, will be trialed in a datacomms use case. Following completion of the project, this deployment will progress toward commercial development, the company said. Compared to the current industry-leading electronic switches, Finchetto’s first-generation optical switch achieves up to a 20× reduction in power requirements. Its fully optical, passive architecture removes the need for electronics within the switch, enabling ultra-low-latency networking and supporting advanced topologies such as Intel’s PolarFly for massively distributed compute. The company was founded in 2020 by Mark Rushworth and Michael Pearcey, the inventor of Finchetto’s core intellectual property and a specialist in nontraditional computer systems architecture. Rushworth and Pearcey serve as CEO and CTO, respectively.