Femtosecond lasers are used to manufacture components for AI data center equipment, including parts used in advanced optical connections that speed up data transfer. Femtosecond lasers emit extremely short pulses, lasting quadrillionths of a second, that allow manufacturers to process next-generation materials with minimal heat damage.
The AI data center boom is projected to more than double AI infrastructure capital expenditure in the next five years, while the market for optical connections that speed up data transfer will increase nearly 400 times, reports from Goldman Sachs and TrendForce show. According to experts at femtosecond laser company LITILIT, the AI boom is also increasing the demand for advanced lasers that can process materials with high precision and minimal heat.
A Goldman Sachs report estimates that annual AI infrastructure capital expenditure will grow from $765 billion in 2026 to $1.6 trillion by 2031, driven by surging demand for compute power, data center construction, and energy infrastructure. The report also warns that power, labor and equipment bottlenecks could lengthen the time between capital commitments and operational data centers.
According to Nikolajus Gavrilinas, CEO of femtosecond laser manufacturer LITILIT, one of the less visible bottlenecks could be the precision tools needed to manufacture components for next-generation data center equipment.
“Many advanced AI components, from semiconductor packages, glass substrates, to optical interconnects and advanced PCBs, require manufacturing technologies that can process materials without introducing heat damage. Femtosecond lasers are becoming one of the key enabling tools for this transition, and we believe demand will grow rapidly as AI manufacturing scales,” Gavrilinas says.
Currently, one of the biggest issues in making data centers more efficient is speeding up data transfers. TrendForce recently forecast that the market for co-packaged and near-packaged optics – optical connections that speed up data transfer – will grow from around $100 million in 2025 to over $39 billion by 2030.
According to Gavrilinas, femtosecond lasers are increasingly used to make components for equipment that enables faster data transfer. For example, they can be used to make glass interposers – wiring layers used in advanced AI hardware and data center equipment to help connect chiplets. The laser drills microscopic holes through the glass, which are then filled with copper and turned into tiny vertical connections.
“A normal laser or mechanical drill heats the material as it cuts, and glass can crack or chip when heated unevenly. A femtosecond laser fires pulses so short – quadrillionths of a second – that the surrounding glass has almost no time to heat up. The same precision is also used to manufacture other data center equipment wherever something needs to be cut, trimmed, or fixed with almost no heat,” Gavrilinas explains.
He notes that despite surging demand, producing femtosecond lasers at industrial volume remains difficult, as most femtosecond laser systems evolved from scientific systems and can deliver strong performance, but are difficult to automate and depend on qualified specialists.
To narrow the adoption gap, LITILIT developed a new technology based on a few patented inventions (link to patent 1, link 2), made by LITILIT co-founders Kęstutis Regelskis, Nerijus Rusteika, and Gavrilinas, in close collaboration with the Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) in Vilnius. The technology allows to manufacture femtosecond lasers with purpose-built design, reduced component complexity and high level of automation.
In June 2026, LITILIT started the construction of a laser factory in Vilnius, and later plans to replicate the model together with international partners.