By 2026, artificial intelligence (AI) is making a significant shift from large cloud-based models to real-world applications. Sectors such as embodied intelligence, intelligent vehicles, XR (Extended Reality), and robotics are experiencing rapid growth. AI is no longer confined to mere 'thinking'; it now needs to 'perceive, connect, and act.' In this context, optics is evolving beyond its traditional role as a tool for imaging and is becoming a crucial gateway for AI to acquire information, understand the world, and transmit data.

During CIOE 2026, OFweek Optical had the privilege of interviewing Xiong Guanhao, the Senior Director of Strategy and Marketing at Sunny Optical Technology Group. Focusing on strategic transformation, industry roles, and organizational change, Mr. Xiong shared his valuable observations and insights.

Strategic Transformation: Optics + AI

At the 2026 Investor Day, Sunny Optical Technology Group officially unveiled its 'Optics + AI' strategy, transitioning from 'imaging perception' to 'foundational technological infrastructure for the intelligent era.' Xiong Guanhao identifies the core factors driving this strategic transformation as emerging trends. He believes that the advent of the AI era could have a more profound impact than previous industrial revolutions. Consequently, the relationship between light and AI is being redefined: light serves as the optimal medium for information transmission, while AI represents a new paradigm for processing this information. As these two domains deeply intersect in this new industry, Sunny Optical anticipates numerous opportunities and a historic expansion of the optical industry's value boundaries.

As large models evolve towards multimodality and embodied intelligence, data from the physical world becomes a scarce resource. Optics, therefore, serves as the most intuitive and information-rich gateway for acquiring this data. Over the past 40 years, Sunny Optical has primarily focused on businesses related to imaging perception, helping industries extend their visual capabilities across space and time. In the AI era, the application scenarios for optics have become increasingly diverse, requiring Sunny Optical to expand not only its business boundaries but also to reimagine the value of optics.

Thus, the transition from 'imaging perception' to 'Optics + AI' is not merely a conceptual superposition but a fundamental reconstruction of the company's value proposition. Light is no longer just about enabling machines to 'see'; it now requires deep interaction with the real physical environment, moving from 'seeing clearly' to 'understanding.' For optical companies, remaining entrenched in traditional imaging may mean missing out on entry opportunities in the physical AI era. Sunny Optical's choice is to integrate light into a key position within the AI industry chain.

Role Reshaping: AI's Senses and Infrastructure

In the AI industry chain, NVIDIA and Intel have defined AI's 'brain.' However, the implementation of physical AI clearly relies on 'senses' and 'data.' Xiong Guanhao mentioned two main avenues for Sunny Optical's 'Optics + AI' strategy. The first is 'intelligent perception via physical AI.' Future embodied intelligence or physical agents will require data collection and perception, with visual perception being the most intuitive and information-rich, as well as non-contact. Sunny Optical can provide everything from optical components to complete visual solutions while ensuring robust privacy protection schemes, giving consumers peace of mind from the perception frontend—no overstepping perception, only precise responsiveness. This means optical companies have the opportunity to move from component supply to defining perception systems.

The second main avenue is 'optical empowerment of AI infrastructure.' Currently, data transmission bottlenecks for AI computing power are becoming increasingly prominent, and the importance of optical interconnects continues to rise. Sunny Optical is actively targeting 'optical interconnects to support computing power.' It is understood that Sunny Optical's optical interconnect industrialization is progressing orderly, with related products entering the domestic customer verification stage and expected to achieve small-scale supply in 2027. Optical computing and optical storage are being continuously developed as long-term technologies. Sunny Optical believes that with the synergistic capabilities of its entire chain accumulated over the past 40 years of focusing on optics, it can make significant strides in this area.

Industry analysts believe that, relying on the 'Optics + AI' strategy, Sunny Optical is poised to continuously unlock industrial value in this process. Stepping out of the ingrained perception as a 'lens manufacturer,' its position in the AI ecosystem is being redefined. While NVIDIA stands at the core of AI computing power supply, further upstream and deeper in the industry chain, Sunny Optical is occupying an indispensable key link with its optical infrastructure for AI computing power.

Organizational Restructuring: Balancing Solutions and Manufacturing

Of course, opportunities come with challenges. The complexity of optical systems in the AI era is rapidly increasing. Technical, process, equipment, and supply chain requirements have significantly risen, making it difficult for single subsidiaries to incubate and respond quickly to cross-domain opportunities. Therefore, Sunny Optical has initiated a platform-based organizational transformation. This involves centralizing common technologies such as equipment and molds, consolidating dispersed capabilities into reusable platform foundations, introducing academician-level CTOs to strengthen frontier technology judgment and top-level R&D systems, and establishing Sunny Capital in Hong Kong to prioritize contact and lock in next-generation key technologies through equity ties, systematically incubating new growth curves. These measures collectively aim to build an organizational foundation for the 'Optics + AI' strategy from three dimensions: platform, technology, and capital, achieving a dual-wheel drive strategy for product and capital value.

The deeper purpose of organizational transformation is to enable shared capabilities, stronger platforms, and agile business ends. Sunny Optical platformizes the core capabilities of its subsidiaries, turning them into cross-industry empowerment foundations. Sunny Capital drives a mindset shift from 'doing business based on existing capabilities' to 'doing business based on emerging opportunities,' systematically building an ecosystem partner circle. Under the 'platform + business matrix' management model, resource synergy and business agility can both be achieved.

Additionally, during the Optoelectronics Expo, Sunny Optical made its debut as a 'full-scenario, end-to-end, intelligent optical system solutions provider.' The new brand positioning encompasses three layers of meaning. First, full-scenario coverage, extending business boundaries from consumer electronics and intelligent vehicles to diverse fields such as XR, pan-IoT (pan-Internet of Things), and precision optics. Second, end-to-end capabilities, possessing complete solution delivery capabilities from optical components, lens modules, system integration to algorithm support. Third, an intelligent core, transforming optical systems from passive 'imaging tools' to active 'perception systems' participating in intelligent decision-making and action loops, from optical perception to optical interconnects and then to AI decision-making.

In response to market discussions about this positioning upgrade, Xiong Guanhao provided a clear interpretation: 'Sunny Optical's upgrade to a system solutions provider is grounded in its deep precision manufacturing capabilities for optical components. System solutions and large-scale manufacturing are two capabilities pursued simultaneously.'

Conclusion

From the CIOE booth to the 2030 goal of a hundred billion, Sunny Optical's story is not just about simple scale expansion but an active evolution toward the AI era. Light once enabled machines to 'see'; now, it is becoming the senses, data, and connection foundation for AI to enter the physical world.

What Sunny Optical demonstrates is the strategic awareness of a world-class optical benchmark enterprise facing a new round of technological revolution. Rooted in over 40 years of optical accumulation, with 'Optics + AI' as its wings, balancing manufacturing and solutions, and synergizing platforms and ecosystems, a hundred billion is not the endpoint. Enabling light to unlock greater value in the AI era is this enterprise's longer-term pursuit.