How a village boy from Punjab helped build the backbone of modern AI era

There is a certain irony that the man who taught the world how to guide light along a curved path first encountered it through a toy. In the 1930s, during his childhood in India, a boy named Narinder Singh Kapany was handed a Kodak Brownie camera, a boxy little instrument built for standard holiday snapshots. For Kapany, it became an obsession. Not with the pictures it produced, but with the question hiding behind them. How does light travel through a lens, how does it bend to change direction, and how does an image form at all?

“That fascination eventually led him to Imperial College London in the early 1950s,” his daughter, Kiran ‘Kiki’ Kapany, told Financial Express in an exclusive conversation about her father’s life and legacy. “Despite his professor’s disbelief, he demonstrated that light could be transmitted through thin glass fibres even around curves, coined the term ‘fibre optics,’ and laid the groundwork for modern telecommunications, medical endoscopes, and the internet itself.”

Kiki recalled that her father loved telling this story because a simple childhood curiosity eventually “ended up rewiring the world.” 

Today, Dr. Kapany is known around the world as the “Father of Fibre Optics.” His innovation proved that light could travel through curved glass fibres without escaping, challenging the belief held by some at the time that light only travelled in straight lines. 

That discovery became the foundation for technologies we now see in everyday life, from internet cables under the sea to medical instruments used inside the human body and the giant data centres that power AI systems. 

Building a business empire in Silicon Valley

Kapany was born on October 31, 1926, in Moga, Punjab. He studied in Dehradun before graduating from Agra University in 1948. His academic journey then took him to Imperial College London, where he worked alongside Professor Harold Hopkins. In 1953, he became the first person to successfully transmit a high-quality image through a bundle of optical fibres. 

But Kapany wanted to do more than make scientific discoveries. “He wanted to leave a meaningful legacy, and he always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur,” Kiki said. “Education mattered deeply to him, but he was not interested in knowledge staying only in the laboratory. He wanted to build something that could change the world.”

That ambition eventually took him to California. 

After arriving in San Francisco, Kapany took a major leap in his career. “When he came to San Francisco, he called the vice president of Bank of America and said he wanted to start a company,” Kiki recalled. “That leap led to Optics Technology Incorporated and eventually brought our family to the Silicon Valley.” 

Founded in 1960, Optics Technology Inc. went public in 1967. According to several accounts, Kapany became the first Sikh Indian entrepreneur to take a company public in Silicon Valley. 

Kiki believes her father recognised something special about California early on. “He saw that California had people from many parts of the world and a culture that welcomed entrepreneurs and new technology,” she said. 

Over the years, Kapany founded several more companies, including Kaptron Inc. in 1973 and later K2 Optronics. He accumulated more than 120 patents and wrote the first textbook on fibre optics. 

Fortune magazine included him among seven “unsung heroes” who shaped the 20th century in its 1999 “Businessmen of the Century” issue. That same year, Time magazine named him among the top ten scientists of the century.  In 2009, he was considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Physics, which ultimately went to Charles Kao. 

India later honoured him with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2004 and posthumously awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian honour, in 2021. 

From bent light to the backbone of the AI age

Why does a physicist who popularised a term in 1960 matter to a conversation dominated, in 2026, by artificial intelligence, large language models and trillion-dollar data centre build-outs? Every AI system depends on moving enormous amounts of information between processors, data centres and countries. Almost all of that data travels through fibre-optic cables. 

A single optical fibre, thinner than a human hair, can carry huge volumes of information every second. It works through a principle known as total internal reflection, where light bounces along the inside walls of a glass fibre and reaches its destination even when the fibre bends. 

The technology that allows someone in Noida to send a query that is processed in a data centre thousands of kilometres away and receive an answer almost instantly exists because of the work Kapany pioneered. 

Kiki believes her father understood this long before AI became a buzzword. “He understood the deeper concept behind fibre optics and AI: the future would depend on transmitting enormous amounts of data or information quickly, clearly, and reliably,” she said.

“I think he was impressed but not surprised to see how fibre optics now supports data centres, cloud computing, global communications, medical technologies, and so much of the infrastructure that makes AI possible.” 

Why it matters now: The fibre shortage behind the AI Boom 

Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany’s work may have begun in the 1950s, but its importance is being felt more than ever today. In January 2026, Meta signed a deal worth up to $6 billion with Corning, the 175-year-old American glass manufacturer, to secure enough fibre-optic cable for its growing network of AI data centres through 2030.

As part of the agreement, Corning is building what is expected to become the world’s largest fibre-optic cable factory in Hickory, North Carolina. Meta will be its biggest customer, but the facility is also expected to help supply fibre to other technology giants, including Nvidia, OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. 

The rush for fibre is being driven by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Unlike traditional data centres, AI facilities need to connect tens of thousands of processors so they can work together as one powerful system. That requires far more fibre-optic cable, some estimates suggest between 16 and 36 times more than a standard cloud data centre.

Fibre also helps reduce power consumption. Sending information as pulses of light through glass can use five to twenty times less energy than transmitting it through copper wires, making it especially valuable at a time when technology companies are struggling with soaring electricity needs. 

The result is a genuine supply crunch. Fibre cable prices have risen sharply through 2025 and 2026, while manufacturers are already booked through 2027. 

The same glass fibre that Kapany bent in a London laboratory in 1953 to prove a sceptical professor wrong has become one of the most sought-after materials in the global AI race. More than seven decades later, the technology he helped create remains the world’s biggest technological transformation. 

The legacy that still lives on

Not all of Dr. Kapany’s companies survived under their original names, but parts of the businesses he built can still be traced to a major global company today. Optics Technology Inc. was eventually absorbed into other ventures. Kaptron Inc. was acquired by AMP Incorporated, then one of the largest electronics connector manufacturers in the United States. Nearly a decade later, AMP was bought by Tyco International (TE Connectivity), a company that continues to operate today and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TEL.

As of mid-2026, TE Connectivity is valued at roughly $58 billion to $61 billion. His final venture, K2 Optronics, remained privately held and operated on a much smaller scale.

The man behind the scientist, the woman who stood beside him

Dr. Kapany’s influence extended far beyond his inventions. “What I find just as meaningful is that he taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, started a Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development, and mentored so many students,” Kiki said.

Kapany served as a Regents Professor at UC Santa Cruz from 1977 to 1983. In 1979, he founded the university’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development. He also established endowed chairs in optoelectronics and entrepreneurship, ensuring future generations would continue benefiting from the opportunities he valued.

Together with his wife, Satinder Kaur, he founded the Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto, California. “There was very little understanding of Sikh history, culture, and religion, and even in California, the nearest gurdwara was far away in Stockton,” Kiki said. “My father and mother saw the need to preserve, share, and celebrate Sikh heritage for future generations.” 

According to the daughter, no account of her father’s life is complete without mentioning her mother, Satinder Kaur. “My father’s path to Imperial College London in 1952 led him to my mother, his future wife,” she said. 

The couple got married in London in 1954 and remained together for 62 years.  “There is no way to speak about his life and legacy without also speaking about her. He said he was privileged to have a brilliant wife, without whom he would be someone quite different. Her steadfast encouragement bolstered his perseverance and resilience as he pioneered new technology.” Satinder Kaur passed away in 2016 after a long illness. Kapany died in December 2020. 

When asked what she hopes people remember about her father, Kiki said she wants them to see the complete person, not just the inventor. “I think my father wanted to be understood in the fullness of who he was,” she said. “He was proud of being known as the father of fibre optics, and rightly so. His scientific work changed the world. But he was never only one thing.”

“He was a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, mentor, art collector, philanthropist, and deeply proud Sikh. He moved between science and culture, business and community, India and the United States, innovation and heritage,” she concluded.