Reading over the ZKTel news release I am reminded of one of Suresh's comments from Dec:

today we know the market is at 800G and we need to take all of our cumulative learning and target it squarely where the demand is.  We were skating to where the puck was -- but we were also learning how to skate.  

Poet Technologies adds ZKTel as optical engine customer

2024-01-03 09:44 ET - News Release

Dr. Suresh Venkatesan reports

POET TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES ZKTEL AS CUSTOMER AND COLLABORATOR

Shaoxing ZKTel Equipment Co. (ZKTel), which supplies optical computer equipment such as modules and transceivers to Tier 1 companies in China's datacom and mobile networking industries, is one of the lead customers for Poet Technologies Inc.'s 100G optical engines.

Poet and ZKTel have been collaborating to develop a 100G CWDM4 optical transceiver module using Poet optical engines supplied by Poet's joint venture company, Super Photonics Xiamen (SPX). Each module contains a 100G CWDM4 transmit and a receive engine with monolithically integrated MUX and DMUX, directly modulated lasers (DMLs), and high-speed photodiodes. Poet developed the product to suit ZKTel's desired designs, demonstrating the flexibility of the optical interposer technology.

"We have been working with ZKTel for more than a year and are pleased to announce a design win for Poet with another module supplier that will go into production in 2024," said Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, Poet's chairman and chief executive officer. "ZKTel is a highly respected and significant player in the China datacom industry and to collaborate with them through SPX is further validation of Poet's commercial and technical strategy. ZKTel has a robust product portfolio and an expansive number of end-users. Through this collaboration, Poet and SPX have a road map with ZKTel that goes beyond the initial 100G CWDM optical engine sales."

"At ZKTel, we are very pleased with the results we have seen with Poet's design and how it helps us meet the demands of our customers. We have been testing the optical engines internally and with our customers and the feedback has been excellent," says James Wang, CEO of ZKTel. "We look forward to a long, prosperous relationship with the Poet and SPX teams, and to deploying these products to increase the market share for ZKTel."

ZKTel's decision to move into single-mode optics sparked its interest in Poet. The company was an attractive choice because of the low capital expenditure and elegant architecture required to adopt the optical interposer. Poet creates a low barrier to entry into the single-mode optics marketplace for ZKTel. In the production phase, SPX assembles and tests the optical engines at its state-of-the-art facility and ships optical engines to customers such as ZKTel. Customers use optical engine production samples to complete their internal qualification and start sampling modules to their end customers. This cycle typically takes six to nine months before high-volume production can be expected. However, since ZKTel is in advanced stages of its module development, ZKTel expects to ramp to volume production in the second half of 2024.