Embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method for routing optical data. In one embodiment of the present invention, data can routed in a non-blocking fashion from a plurality of the ingress edge units to a plurality of egress edge units by selectively connecting the ingress edge units to the egress edge units at a photonic core. Switching at the photonic core can be driven by a clock signal and does not require an electrical to optical conversion to occur at the core. This can allow switching on the nanosecond level, substantially faster than many prior art systems.