Are the performance gains still sufficient to justify further investment? With R&D taking place across a range of semiconductor materials, how will material choices be made, and which are ultimately likely to succeed in the market? This could span CS, 2D materials and rare earth metals for semiconductors, devices, interposers, substrates, gratings and heatsinks. How will this expertise help accelerate and support quantum solutions?

Mark Rushworth, CEO, Finchetto
Thin Film Lithium Niobate: The Material Rewriting the Rules of High-Speed Datacoms
As AI workloads push bandwidth beyond what silicon-based architectures can sustain, thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) is emerging as the photonic platform best positioned to meet the high-speed, low-latency demands of next-generation data centre infrastructure. Drawing on Finchetto's development of the world's first fully optical packet switch for HPC and AI networks, Mark will examine where TFLN sits in the photonics material landscape and why the platform choices made today will define data centre network architecture for the next decade.

Professor Jon Heffernan FREng, Director, National Epitaxy Facility, University of Sheffield
Innovation from Function: New Semiconductor Materials and How to Find Them
Semiconductors are by definition a class of materials and all semiconductor technology is ultimately derived from the multifaceted properties of those materials. How do we continue to find new function from existing semiconductors and what need do we have for new semiconductor materials?

Dr Rodney Pelzel, Chief Technology Officer & Chief Operating Officer, IQE plc
The Compound Semiconductor Paradigm Shift
The combined demands of AI and sustainability are driving the semiconductor industry into a new era—one no longer defined primarily by the continued scaling of silicon. While silicon remains foundational, system performance is now increasingly constrained by the need for energy-efficient, high-speed data transmission and interconnect bandwidth. This shift is being enabled by compound semiconductors, which play a critical role in advancing photonics for data movement and power electronics for energy efficiency. In this new paradigm, progress is increasingly shaped by the limits of materials physics and the ability to combine different semiconductor technologies effectively, rather than by fabrication scaling alone.