Public Events

Public Lecture by Nobel Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Didier Queloz

Prof. Dr. Joël Mesot

President, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Introduction of Nobel Prize Laureate

Sunday, 18 September, 18:00 – 18:05, Room San Francisco

Prof. Dr. Didier Queloz

Full Professor, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

The Exoplanet Revolution

Sunday, 18 September, 18:05 – 19:00, Room San Francisco

The wealth and diversity of planetary systems that have now been detected modified our perspective on planet formation as a whole and more specifically our place in the Universe and the possibility of rarity of planetary systems similar to our own. It is also an opportunity of historical perspectives to look for signs of life on these new worlds as a way to explore our own origins. I will introduce the audience with the challenges of early discoveries and recent progresses in this new field of research and will touch upon the emergence of a new paradigm for the origins of life on Earth.

Didier Queloz was at the origin of the ”exoplanet revolution” in astrophysics when in 1995 during his PhD with his supervisor they announced the first discovery of a giant planet orbiting another star, outside the solar system. This seminal discovery has spawned a revolution in astronomy and kickstarted the field of exoplanet research. Over the next 25 years, Didier Queloz' scientific contributions have been essential towards advancing detection and measurement capabilities of exoplanet systems with the goal to retrieve information on their physical structure and to better understand their formation and evolution by comparison with our solar system. More recently, he is directing his activity to the detection of Earth-like planets and universal life. In the course of his career, he developed astronomical equipments, new observational approaches and detection algorithms. He participated and conducted programs leading to the detection of hundreds of planets, including breakthrough results. He participated to numerous documentaries, movies, articles, TV and radio interviews to share excitement and promote interest for science in general and particularly topics about exoplanets and life in the universe.

Public Workshop: Optical Networks - Will they destroy the planet or save humanity?

• Organisers

  Chris Fludger, Infinera GmbH, Germany
  Fabrice Bourgart, Orange Labs, France

• Time & Location

  Sunday, 18 September 2022, 14:00 – 17:30, Room San Francisco

• Description

  Exponential growth is not sustainable, and the once long-term problems of climate change are becoming rapidly short-term problems affecting resource depletion, waste generation, general pollution and increasing prevalence of natural disasters. This workshop examines the green credentials of the optical communications industry, and looks at initiatives and directions towards a more sustainable future.

  Today’s networks focus on high-end performance and end-user experience. Tomorrow’s networks must also balance energy efficiency with varying traffic-load, and designs focused on sustainability.

  The workshop precedes the Nobel plenary talk of Didier Queloz on Exoplanet Discovery, and in contrast to traditional ECOC workshops, will be open to the general public. There will be plenty of opportunity for thought-provoking discussion and questions!

• Posed Questions

  Introduction

  The Big-Picture, Klaus Grobe, Senior Director Global Sustainability, ADVA Optical Networking SE, Germany
   How long is exponential growth sustainable?
   An end-to-end view: Where should we focus our efforts for the biggest savings and improvements? Data-center, Access or Metro? FTTH?
   Does Greening-by-ICT make the Optical Telcom industry look good or bad?
   Who is doing what, and will it make a difference? 

  Re-use, Reduce, Re-cycle, Florian Doussot, Orange Sustainable and Circular Ambition for Recertification (OSCAR) Stream Leader, Orange, France
   What’s going on in improving product life-cycle?
   Are pluggable devices the answer to re-use and extending the lifetime of optics, or are we creating a landfill of disposable devices?
   Are our efforts for a circular economy running in circles?
   Should we be using Indium-Berylium-cyano-non-recyclium?

  Give me Moore for less!, Kishore Kota, Associate Vice President Engineering, Coherent DSP Group, Marvell, USA
   What progress have we made in reducing power consumption for optical transceivers and ASICs?
   Will Moore’s law save us? What’s the limit?
   How can we optimize power through design? How much power remains in the optics? What can we save?
   Optimising power depending on traffic load?
   Game-changers?

  Power consumption is Over-The-Top
   What are the power-hungry applications and services? IOT? Streaming? Machine learning? What is the traffic characteristics? Latency? Burstiness? Throughput?
   Is disaggregation beneficial for cost or power?
   Bandwidth as a limited resource?
   PON = Power-efficient Optical Networks?
   What are the game changers ? Will Optical switching make a dramatic difference?
   Network architecture for lower power rather than higher performance?
  

  A disruption in the network, Johan Bäck, Sr. Director, Business Development, Infinera, Sweden
   The need for a simpler more intelligent network.
   Lowering power with lower traffic-load?
  

  Big-Data vs Intelligent Data, Dan Kilper, Professor of Future Communication Networks, CONNECT centre, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
   Optimising networks for lower energy rather than higher performance. Are they mutually exclusive?
   Does network disaggregation spread the flames?
   Big Data & centralized AI, or limited data & Distributed AI?
   Are we a slave to legacy IP? Kill off transcoding?
   Today’s networks seem less-and-less aware of the end-to-end application.
   Any game-changers?
  

  Are Optical Networks the Solution for Energy Hungry Data Centers?, Chongjin Xie, Senior Director, Chief Communication Scientist, Alibaba Cloud, USA
   Moving towards bandwidth/power on demand – energy optimisation for traffic loads
   Designing the network to lower the impact of power hungry applications
   Designing for resilience in an energy constrained environment
   Data-center architectures focused on lower energy rather than higher processing
   Key technologies
   Life-time and re-use of pluggable devices in a data-center
  

  Are we willing participants or do we need to be dragged screaming to the table?, Jean-Luc Lemmens, Director, Media and Telecom, IDATE, France
   Do we as end-users / service-providers / manufacturers have enough incentive to lower energy usage?
   Who will set the goal to be achieved?
   What sacrifices will we have to make?
   How to achieve awareness and co-operation across different segments?