US contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries sees robust demand for Chinese optical modules amid the data centre construction boom, as the firm expands its presence in China to better serve its domestic clients. Shankaran Janardhanan, senior vice-president of the firm’s photonics and radio frequency division, told the South China Morning Post in an interview that demand in the optical networking module segment was “strong”. The surging appetite for Chinese optical modules – used to transmit data in high-performance data centres – had partly driven the company’s decision to bet heavily on photonics, Janardhanan said at the company’s recent annual tech summit in Shanghai.