Adolf Lohmann and the Return of the Optical Computer: Vision, Legacy, and Lessons for the AI Age

In the 1980s, Adolf W. Lohmann envisioned optical computers and optical interconnects. Information processing based on light rather than electrons, exploiting massive parallelism inherent to optical systems. At the time, this vision was widely regarded as too visionary and economically unrealistic. Today, as AI drives exponential data growth and power demand, photonic processors and optical interconnects promise massive efficiency gains. This talk revisits Lohmann’s fore-sight - from Fourier optics to photonic AI. Marking his 100th birthday, we pay tribute to Adolf W. Lohmann, a visionary whose ideas, once ahead of their time, continue to inspire future innovations.