BRUSSELS -- Huawei, a global leading company in information and communication technology (ICT), and Belgium-based nanoelectronics research center Imec announced Wednesday their strategic partnership on optical data link technology.

Their joint research on silicon-based optical interconnection is expected to deliver benefits including high speed, low power consumption and cost savings.

"This is an important next step in our collaboration with Huawei on silicon photonics. This collaboration shows that our silicon photonics research is important for advancing next-generation high-bandwidth ICT solutions," Imec President and CEO Luc Van den Hove said.

Silicon photonics is a key technology expected to revolutionize optical communications by enabling the creation of highly integrated, low power optical transceivers used for data transmission and telecommunications.

In 2013, Huawei acquired photonics company Caliopa, jointly created by Imec and Ghent University, thereby adding silicon photonics research to its European research and development (R&D) portfolio.

"Having acquired cutting-edge expertise in the field of silicon photonics thanks to our acquisition of Caliopa last year, this partnership with Imec is the logical next move toward next-generation optical communication," CEO of Huawei Belgium Hudson Liu said.

Huawei's products and solutions are available in more than 170 countries, serving more than one third of the world's population. The company currently has a staff of more than 7,700 people in Europe, of whom 850 are working in R&D.