Félicitations à Henri Kagan of France and Kenso Soai of Japan for winning this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. Their discoveries have opened new avenues for scientific research, including the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Since this July, Japan is officially associated with Horizon Europe. This means that Japanese researchers and organisations can now take part in the world's largest public research and innovation programme. Together, Europe and Japan will continue breaking new frontiers.

🇨🇦🇪🇺 Canada could become the EU’s first-ever “associate member,” but before anyone starts printing blue passports, Brussels still has to decide what that actually means. Ursula von der Leyen floated the idea as a way to pull Canada much closer to Europe economically and strategically without offering full membership, which Canada cannot legally qualify for anyway because it is not a European country. The likely arrangement would sit somewhere between today’s CETA trade deal and the much deeper access enjoyed by countries like Norway or Switzerland. That could mean easier trade, closer cooperation on defense, energy, technology and the Arctic, plus expanded travel and education rights. And some of that is already moving beyond theory. Ottawa and Brussels are reportedly discussing Canadian participation in Erasmus+ and deeper access to the EU’s Horizon Europe research program. They’re also looking at broader mutual recognition of professional qualifications, potentially covering doctors, engineers and professors. Canada is also already the first non-European country participating in the EU’s €150 billion SAFE defense-procurement program, so the integration has been quietly getting deeper for a while. Canada’s trade fight with Washington has intensified, Trump slapped 50% tariffs on around $20 billion of Canadian goods, and Ottawa is openly trying to reduce its dependence on the U.S. Still, this is nowhere near a done deal. “Associate membership” does not currently exist as a defined EU status. Member states and Parliament would have to agree on what Canada actually gets, what rules it follows and how much it pays. Countries already waiting years to join may not love seeing Ottawa offered its own bespoke lane. Trump has already called the idea “laughable,” suggested deeper Canadian integration with the EU could amount to a “hostile act,” and threatened Europe with serious tariffs if he decides the arrangement harms U.S. interests. So this is no longer just a quirky new EU membership category. It’s starting to look like part of something much bigger: Canada trying to build itself a lot more room between Washington and Brussels. Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, Euronews, Financial Times, Government of Canada / Writer: Julie

OPTICAL NETWORKING DAILY DIGEST, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2026 STATUS CHANGES • Broadcom: A $63 billion financing structure to enable AI compute was announced on October 26, 2026 by Bank of America, Blackstone, Citi and Morgan Stanley: a newly formed special purpose vehicle will purchase Broadcom XPU AI accelerators and networking solutions and lease them to Anthropic, under a previously announced strategic compute capacity agreement, with deliveries starting in calendar 2027 and Broadcom providing residual value support equal to the first lien portion. A financing and demand signal for Broadcom networking products, not a new product. • Celestica: Third quarter 2026 results, released October 26, 2026: revenue $5.83 billion, up 83 percent year over year, and adjusted EPS $3.30. Connectivity and Cloud Solutions segment revenue was $4.87 billion, up 102 percent, including Hardware Platform Solutions revenue of approximately $2.3 billion, up 70 percent; Advanced Technology Solutions segment revenue was $0.96 billion, up 23 percent. The 2026 revenue outlook was raised to $21.0 billion, and an initial 2027 outlook of $40.0 billion in revenue was given. No new product. • Corning: Third quarter 2026 results: GAAP sales $4,855 million, up 18 percent; core sales $5,081 million, up 19 percent; core EPS $0.91. Optical Communications segment net sales were $2,379 million, up 44 percent, with segment net income of $532 million, up 80 percent; Enterprise Networks sales grew 84 percent and Gen AI product sales grew more than 100 percent. Corning secured four long-term, multibillion-dollar customer agreements in the quarter, including with Verizon and AT&T, with no per-agreement value stated. No new product. • ZTE: Third quarter 2026 results, filed October 26, 2026: nine-month operating revenue RMB 116.84 billion, up 16.2 percent year over year; third quarter revenue RMB 38.81 billion, up 34.0 percent; third quarter net profit attributable to shareholders RMB 1.31 billion, up 394.5 percent. Computing accounted for 38 percent of revenue, and data center solutions revenue increased approximately 130 percent. No new product. ACQUISITION • Intel: Intel announced a definitive agreement on October 26, 2026 to acquire Classiq, a Tel Aviv quantum algorithm synthesis software company, to create a full-stack quantum computing platform. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. The release discloses no price; a value of about $2.3 billion reported by Reuters, attributed to Bloomberg News citing people familiar, was not confirmed by Intel. Quantum software, non-optical. SCREENING • Corning: A claimed October 24, 2026 GlobeNewswire release announcing a Corning and Samsung Electronics memorandum of understanding for glass-based optical interconnect and advanced packaging could not be verified from a primary source on the third day of checking: exact-title searches returned no matching release, GlobeNewswire listings show no October 24, 2026 Corning item, and Samsung sources show no such agreement. No product or design win was recorded. Re-check next run. • Arista Networks: The Arista security advisories source was unchecked this run after two failed fetches, so its advisory list was not verified today. An individual advisory opened directly carries a revision dated October 26, 2026 to a release first dated October 23, 2026, which is not a new advisory. Re-check next run. • Adtran: Adtran Networks SE published a voting rights notification on October 26, 2026: UBS Group AG crossed to a total position of 3.2 percent (3.19 percent in voting rights attached to shares plus 0.01 percent through instruments), with the threshold crossed on October 22, 2026, up from a previous notification of 2.84 percent. Non-product, no optical change. • Intel: Intel and Oracle plan an expanded collaboration, announced October 27, 2026: a multiyear plan to expand Xeon-based computing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, including planned offerings on the next-generation Diamond Rapids server processor, with Oracle Acceleron networking mentioned in passing. Compute collaboration, no optical product. • Lightwave Logic: A timing notice dated October 26, 2026 sets the third quarter 2026 financial results and business update call for Tuesday, November 10, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Timing notice only, no product content. • Microchip: Microchip announced program milestones for its PIC64-HPSC spaceflight computing series on October 27, 2026, including radiation characterization of the radiation-hardened variant and evaluation kits for select early access customers. Spaceflight computing, not an optical networking product. • NVIDIA: NVIDIA and Meta announced an expanded collaboration on October 27, 2026, covering the Muse family of models, a planned NVIDIA investment of $3 billion in a Meta equity offering, and Meta's stated intent to expand deployment of NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking and BlueField-4 alongside Vera Rubin and Vera CPUs. Spectrum-X is an existing product line; no new optical or networking product was announced. • NEC Corporation: NEC announced on October 27, 2026 that it will contribute to AI powered vaccine design through the EU funded PREPAIR VAC pandemic preparedness project, through NEC OncoImmunity, with about EUR 6.5 million in Horizon Europe funding. Non-optical, no product change.