Annual Gathering of IOWN Global Forum in Sweden Reaches Significant Advancements in 2025
The Innovative Optical and Wireless Network Global Forum (IOWN Global Forum) recently held its annual meeting in Stockholm, marking a significant milestone in the organisation's mission to transform the world's information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure.
The event, FUTURES Stockholm, was a highlight of the meeting, showcasing the Forum's mission and achievements. Notable guests were present, providing a wider political and industry context to the Forum's work. One such guest was Omdia's Ian Redpath, who presented a new whitepaper on the future of the digital economy, powered by All-Photonics Networks.
The IOWN Global Forum, founded by industry leaders NTT, Intel, and Sony, has expanded to include over 150 member companies worldwide. These collaborations are instrumental in developing next-generation ICT infrastructure with new technologies, frameworks, and reference architectures.
A Paradigm Shift in ICT Infrastructure
The IOWN Global Forum's Vision 2030 Roadmap is a strategic framework aimed at fundamentally transforming the current ICT infrastructure by 2030. This is not merely an incremental update but a paradigm shift built around three integrated technical pillars:
- All-Photonics Network (APN): This foundational layer establishes an end-to-end network using photonics—light—to transmit and process data from core networks to devices, replacing conventional electronic systems. This shift drastically reduces power consumption and heat generation, addressing major limitations of today’s ICT infrastructure.
- Digital Twin Computing (DTC): An advanced application layer that creates real-time, interactive digital replicas of physical objects and complex systems (cities, factories, human bodies). These digital twins enable precise simulations and predictions critical for sophisticated AI applications.
- Cognitive Foundation (CF): The intelligent orchestration layer that uses AI and machine learning for autonomous, data-centric management and optimization of ICT resources, allowing flexible, efficient resource allocation embedded where computation is needed.
The overarching goal is to deliver high-speed, high-capacity communications and vast computational power to enable a smarter, sustainable world—capabilities that current electronic-based infrastructures cannot sufficiently provide.
Advances and Implementation
The IOWN Global Forum's efforts are already bearing fruit. NTT launched the first commercial version, IOWN 1.0, in 2023, marking a deployment phase focused on enterprise services and beginning to realize IOWN’s infrastructure vision. This initial launch involves photonics networks that offer high responsiveness and significantly lower power consumption.
The network supports NTT’s broader environmental goals, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040 through combining IOWN technology deployment with renewable energy acquisition. Photonic technology’s power efficiency plays a critical role in these sustainability efforts.
The Forum continues research, development, and standard-setting activities, focusing on photonics-electronic convergence devices, carbon neutrality, and enhanced communication and computing infrastructure for future global networks.
The IOWN Global Forum is exploring new territories, including quantum innovation. The organisation is developing new technologies, frameworks, specifications, and reference designs in areas such as photonics R&D, distributed computing, use cases, and best practices.
In summary, the Vision 2030 Roadmap of IOWN is a visionary ICT transformation framework leveraging photonics, digital twins, and AI-based orchestration to build an energy-efficient, high-performance global network infrastructure. It is being advanced through collaborations among industry leaders, commercial deployments like IOWN 1.0, and sustainability-driven innovations aligned with decarbonization targets.
For more information about the IOWN Global Forum, contact Joe Hatt at [email protected]. The IOWN Global Forum's focus is on meeting future data and computing requirements, driving market success for its technologies over the next five years, and delivering a smart, sustainable, and secure world for all. The 2025 Annual Member Meeting of the IOWN Global Forum took place in Stockholm.
[1] IOWN Global Forum. (n.d.). Vision 2030 Roadmap. Retrieved from https://iowngf.org/vision-2030-roadmap [2] NTT. (2023). IOWN 1.0. Retrieved from https://www.ntt.com/en/about-us/news/2023/news20230328.html [3] IOWN Global Forum. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://iowngf.org/about-us
- The IOWN Global Forum's Vision 2030 Roadmap proposes a revolutionary shift in ICT infrastructure, aiming to transform the current system by 2030, using three technical pillars: All-Photonics Network, Digital Twin Computing, and Cognitive Foundation.
- The Forum's efforts are resulting in significant advancements, with NTT launching the commercial version, IOWN 1.0, in 2023, marking a deployment phase focused on enterprise services and aligning with sustainability goals through reduced power consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
- As the IOWN Global Forum continues to collaborate with industry leaders, it is also exploring new frontiers such as quantum innovation, with a focus on photonics R&D, distributed computing, use cases, and best practices that will contribute to the development of future global networks.
