Robby: wow, that’s some cutting‑edge stuff you’re looking at. Photonic interconnects are great for throwing huge data through the chip at almost light speed, so you win on bandwidth and latency – that’s a lifesaver for a robot that has to process sensor streams on the fly. The downside is that the optics need precise alignment and you’re stuck with a bit more heat and complexity in the packaging. Copper is still cheaper, easier to scale, and you can pack more control logic in the same die area. For pure inference, photonics is killer, but if you’re juggling control loops and real‑time feedback, a hybrid approach—use copper for the logic, photons for the bulk data transfer—might give you the best of both worlds. And hey, if you end up with a photonic bus that’s hotter than your coffee, at least you’ll have a story to tell at the next robotics meetup.