Photonic communications and physical sensing systems are conventionally separated optical technologies, both shaping every facet of our daily activities within the modern society. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to interlink both systems into a conceptual ecosystem, where big data counts are handled and processed by using modern machine learning algorithms. In this project, we address the co-existence of photonic and sensing systems by tackling challenges of stochastic fiber impairments, on a side of fast photonic backbones, while improving the sensing infrastructure for detection of different physical quantities. This work will also investigate new opportunities to implement complex photonic-sensing systems on compact chips, harnessing mature semiconductor integration platforms.