As AI glasses move towards large-scale adoption, how does Guangna Siwei reshape the optical track?

At the just - concluded "Tech Spring Festival Gala", the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), AI glasses have undoubtedly become one of the hottest sectors under the spotlight.

From Meta initiating the era of AI glasses in 2023 to the product explosion period in 2025, the industry has witnessed a "hundred - glasses competition". A large number of players, including XR technology companies, AI glasses startups, internet giants, major mobile phone manufacturers, and cross - border enterprises, have flocked to this sector. AI glasses have also evolved from geek toys to the mass consumer market.

Meanwhile, the industry has officially entered the stage of large - scale production, and "explosive orders" have become the most tangible experience. During CES 2026, the tech giant Meta announced that its international market expansion plan originally scheduled to start at the beginning of the year had to be postponed because the Meta Ray - Ban series launched last year sold too well. In China, there has also been a shortage of supply for all the best - selling models of various manufacturers.

AI glasses have become a new growth pole in the consumer electronics field. According to IDC's prediction, in 2026, the global shipment volume of smart glasses is expected to exceed 23.687 million units, marking a turning point for the market to reach large - scale production.

For the participants in this sector, this is not only a challenge to product innovation and scenario adaptation capabilities but also a test of the ability to break through the production capacity bottleneck. This has also propelled the AR industry to officially enter the large - scale explosion period.

As a core supplier of optical waveguide devices in the upstream of the sector, "Guangna Siwei" was the first to sense the industry trend. After completing a hundred - million - level financing, it accelerated the expansion of production capacity.

Currently, this company, founded in 2021 and dedicated to the R & D and production of AR diffractive optical waveguide micro - nano optical devices, has built a production line with an annual capacity of nearly one million sets. It will achieve a production capacity of over one million sets in 2026, and with its full - chain technological advantages and large - scale delivery capabilities, it can meet the surging global market demand.

Behind the Explosive Orders: An "Arms Race" Concerning the Upstream Core Technological Strength

The deep integration of AI and AR is the most core technological trend in current smart glasses.

However, when AI has become a "standard feature" of tech products, the key factor that makes 2026 the turning point for AI glasses, as widely recognized in the industry, focuses on another core: optical waveguide devices, which directly determine the upper limit of the product.

Looking back at the development of AR glasses, from Google's launch of the first - generation Google Glass in 2012 to the layout of global giants and startups, it was not until 2019 that significant progress was made in the optical display field. The optical waveguide technology, which can provide higher light efficiency, a larger field of view, and a better yield rate, and promotes the products to become thinner, have better display effects, and lower costs, emerged, truly laying the foundation for the explosion of AI glasses.

As the industry moves towards large - scale production, the competition is no longer limited to the end - products but has evolved into an "arms race" of upstream core technological strength. In the field of optical waveguide devices, only manufacturers with the capabilities of independent design, self - developed equipment, core materials, and rapid process iteration can help end - products establish advantages in delivery speed, cost control, and customization capabilities.

On the one hand, in the field of smart hardware, the most expensive cost is not the materials but "uncertainty" - the repetition of the R & D cycle, the fluctuation of mass - production yield, and the interruption of the supply of key components can easily undermine an excellent product definition at any time. On the other hand, under the industry's common model of "R & D order - product adaptation - mass production transfer", the time cycle of the industrial chain is often long, posing great challenges to the rapid response to market demand.

"Speed" and "stability" have become the rarest capabilities in the industry. "Guangna Siwei" is precisely a company with these dual capabilities. Although this optical waveguide device supplier, founded in 2021, did not enter the industry very early, its revenue has increased dozens of times in four years, with a 61.4% global market share of waveguide chips and the world's first single - product shipment volume.

The key lies in the two keywords of "speed" and "stability".

In 2023, "Guangna Siwei" started to contact its first AR glasses mass - production customer. Compared with other suppliers of this customer, this time point was half a year later. However, relying on its rapid iteration ability, "Guangna Siwei"'s samples were the first to meet all the customer's design requirements. And with its stable mass - production ability, it became the customer's first - choice supplier.

This challenge was comprehensive, especially when the industry mainly focused on increasing the FOV and creating immersive AR glasses. At that time, this customer was one of the few in the industry that proposed the product should eliminate rainbow fringes, improve transmittance, and reduce weight and thickness, which required comprehensive consideration in many aspects such as the grating layout of optical waveguide devices, the selection of refractive materials, parameter design, and geometric layout.

Behind "Guangna Siwei"'s path from design to mass production is an IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer) model that it chose from the beginning of its entrepreneurship. This model involves self - research and self - control in all aspects from the design, manufacturing, to packaging and testing of diffractive optical waveguide chips, enabling it to overcome the core challenges of optical waveguide chips in terms of performance, consistency, and cost.

For example, through innovation and precipitation of core algorithms, "Guangna Siwei" self - developed the optical design software SEEVerse, achieving an operation efficiency 10 times higher than similar software on the market. Relying on this software, "Guangna Siwei" set a industry record of delivering samples within 68 hours from demand docking, which has an absolute leading advantage over the industry's general iteration cycle of several weeks. This has also become its greatest support to "catch up from behind".

It is worth mentioning that in 2023, the AR glasses project also had to face the problem of a huge gap between excellent optical performance and a price acceptable to the general consumers. The industry often found itself in an embarrassing situation of having to choose one of the two. However, through full - chain technology layout and underlying technology innovation, "Guangna Siwei" achieved a "both - and" dimensionality - reduction strike.

In the single - green display sector, "Guangna Siwei" introduced the metasurface technology for the first time globally in its new production line SEEFab. This not only improved the performance by 30% - 50% but also reduced the comprehensive cost to 50% of the industry level. Moreover, through 100% localization of equipment and raw materials, the production cost was further reduced.

With continuous in - depth technological research, in the field of monochromatic nano - imprinting, "Guangna Siwei"'s products have created waveguide lenses with a thickness of only 0.5mm and a weight of only 2.2g, which can achieve a 99% ultra - high transmittance and a visual effect without rainbow fringes and ghost images, perfectly matching the daily wearing needs of consumer - grade products.

From Monochrome to Full - Color: The Experience Revolution of Always On

"Guangna Siwei"'s "both - and" choice is not to stage an expensive "technology show" but to make good optics a standard feature of smart devices.

In fact, even when AI glasses are no longer just geek toys but are moving towards the mass market, obtaining better performance at a lower price remains the most core demand of consumers.

Focusing on optical display, full - color display is the future direction recognized by the industry. Because the realization of full - color display is a necessary condition for AI glasses to become an "Always On" device. This technology can not only significantly improve the efficiency of information acquisition but also fundamentally improve the user experience.

Meanwhile, full - color display is also regarded as the key turning point for the industry to achieve popularization. This is a clear development path, from no display to single - green display on a small screen, then to full - color on a small screen, and finally to full - color on a large screen.

However, while the monochromatic optical waveguide technology is becoming mature, full - color waveguides still face the difficult problem of balancing color reproducibility, brightness, and lens thickness. To reduce the iteration cycle of processes and equipment, the industry generally relies on the existing mature semiconductor process flow, namely "photolithography + titanium oxide etching", to implement the full - color waveguide solution. However, this also makes cost an insurmountable mountain.

This is an "invisible burden" faced by the entire industry: either sacrifice cost for performance, resulting in high - priced products; or compromise on performance for cost, leading to a greatly reduced experience.

"Guangna Siwei" did not choose to compromise. Through the innovative nano - imprinting 3.0 technology, it uses the technology of coating titanium oxide nanoparticles on a high - refractive glass substrate to obtain products with almost no performance difference from the etching solution of coating titanium oxide on a high - refractive glass substrate.

The real experience is that, on the premise of no difference in optical effects, since expensive equipment such as lithography machines and etching machines are not needed, the cost is significantly reduced to 30% of the traditional path, bringing the full - color experience, which was originally only available in high - end products, into a price range more suitable for the general consumers.

Currently, "Guangna Siwei" has taken the lead in completing the technological reserve for the third - generation single - chip full - color technology and achieved mass production.

At CES 2026, the AI glasses equipped with "Guangna Siwei"'s C25C nano - imprinted single - layer full - color optical waveguide shone brightly. With a 25° field of view, an ultra - high brightness of 2000 nits, a 92% transmittance in the grating area and 99% in the non - grating area, and excellent performance in effectively suppressing the rainbow fringe effect, it won the "CES Design Excellence Award", and the product's ultimate display effect and mass - production stability have been highly recognized by the international market.

The C25C nano - imprinted single - layer full - color optical waveguide is a typical example of "Guangna Siwei"'s consistent pursuit of thin and light diffractive optical waveguides. With a thickness of 0.7mm and a weight of 3.5g, it has once again refreshed the industry record for full - color optical waveguides. The C25C nano - imprinting also uses the "optical tunneling" technology for the first time in the industry, greatly improving the production yield and reducing the production cost.

This uncompromising spirit has been integrated into the company's genes.

To completely solve the problem of stray light, "Guangna Siwei" has achieved clear display of optical waveguides without after - images and halos through extreme process control in all aspects of the manufacturing end, from nanometer - level optimization of template accuracy, to completely solving the problem of nano - imprinting demolding, and then to strict management of cleanliness in the whole process.

To solve the problem of multi - layer lens stacking, "Guangna Siwei" has integrated the optical waveguide lens and the electrochromic lens into a single lens through the full - bonding process, significantly reducing the overall thickness of the lens. At the same time, the whole machine can pass the FDA ball - drop test, truly meeting the reliability requirements of consumer electronics products.

"Guangna Siwei" has also proposed four "experience innovation" projects, including the Invisible Aesthetics Project, the Pure Display Project, the Full - Color Etching Project, and the Reliable Integration Project, to break through the bottleneck of AR optical development.

For "Guangna Siwei", what it needs to do is not just the technology that only exists in the laboratory parameter table, but how to turn the top - notch optical technology into "standard parts" that every smart terminal can afford and use well through extreme engineering innovation and cost control.

Making AR truly accessible to the mass market has also become the technological belief and commercial origin of "Guangna Siwei".

Decisive Battle for the Next Generation: How Does SiC Etching Define the Ultimate Form of AR Optics?

Although the "iPhone moment" of smart glasses is approaching and there is a feasible solution for full - color display at present, the exploration of the full - color display technology path by optical waveguide devices continues.

As mentioned above, the ultimate form of the development path of optical display is large - screen full - color display. Although the nano - imprinting technology can help consumer - grade products achieve rapid large - scale production with its advantages of high efficiency and low cost, it is difficult to achieve a larger increase in FOV (field of view) without sacrificing other optical parameters because it is difficult for the imprinting adhesive layer to achieve a higher refractive index.

Only the ultra - high refractive index of silicon carbide (SiC) can achieve a truly immersive large - screen display.

On the one hand, compared with glass, SiC material has a higher refractive index, with a regular refractive index of 2.7, which is higher than the level of less than 2.0 for resin and glass. Therefore, it has a wider field of view and is an ideal material for AR glasses lenses. On the other hand, SiC material has the full - color integration characteristic, which can better achieve the single - layer integration of RGB color channels, solve the rainbow fringe effect, and then significantly reduce the weight and thickness of the device while achieving full - color display.

However, even though it has become an industry consensus that SiC is the future, processing it into nano - level optical waveguides is commonly regarded as having a "cost black hole" and a "technology no - go zone".

When the whole industry was watching, "Guangna Siwei" made a seemingly crazy decision at the beginning of its establishment: starting from the laboratory of the National Nano - Technology Innovation Institute in the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area, it pre - ordered a DUV lithography machine that was not used for optical waveguides in China at that time, betting on SiC, which is regarded as a "hard nut" in optics.

Without ready - made equipment, "Guangna Siwei" established a joint laboratory with partners to develop dedicated RIBE etching equipment from scratch. Without process standards, "Guangna Siwei" accumulated a full set of mass - production "Know - How" from wafer arrival to ghost image elimination through repeated tests.

In 2022, "Guangna Siwei" innovatively adopted the semiconductor - grade process of DUV lithography + ICP etching and took the lead in breaking through the AR waveguide etching process preparation technology. In 2023, it achieved a breakthrough in an ultra - wide field of view of 110°. A more important turning point came in 2024 when "Guangna Siwei" achieved in - depth manufacturing process collaboration with strategic partners on silicon carbide wafers, successfully lowering the cost curve of SiC optical waveguides. It not only overcame the "diamond carving" process but also made it commercially priced, directly giving birth to the world's first mass - produced SiC full - color AR glasses.

It is worth mentioning that "Guangna Siwei" was the first in the industry to upgrade the process node of diffractive optical waveguide chips to 65 nanometers, achieving nanometer - level precise control of the grating period, with an etching depth error of less than 2nm and a yield rate of over 95%.

The important significance behind this is that the data, process, and cost advantages accumulated by "Guangna Siwei" in the field of SiC etching are not just simple technological leadership but have opened the door to mass production for the entire AR industry towards "