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22 Oct 2024
Series D venture round intended to support mass deployment of 'world’s fastest photonic engine'.
Lightmatter, the Boston-headquartered startup developing computing hardware based around tiny Mach-Zehnder interferometers, says it has raised another $400 million in a series D round of venture funding led by new investors.
Bringing total funding in the startup to around $850 million, the latest injection of cash also includes support from Google Ventures (GV), which invested in the firm’s $33 million series A round completed in 2019, and finance giant Fidelity.
The investment represents the latest - and one of the largest - examples of financial support for photonics technologies spurred by the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI).
It follows the $44 million raised by Columbia spin-out Xscape Photonics last week, and recent hikes in spending on more conventional optical connectivity products sold by the likes of Corning, Lumentum, Coherent, and others.
Silicon Valley connections
Lightmatter says that the new equity round effectively values it at $4.4 billion, and will enable the commercial roll-out of its “Passage” technology, described as a photonic supercomputer.
“We’re not just advancing AI infrastructure - we’re reinventing it,” said Lightmatter’s co-founder and CEO Nick Harris. “With Passage, the world’s fastest photonic engine, we’re setting a new standard for performance and breaking through the barriers that limit AI computing. This funding accelerates our ability to scale, delivering the supercomputers of tomorrow today.”
Harris has previously explained that instead of using conventional computing architecture based around so-called “multiply-accumulate” units, he and his colleagues plan to deploy programmable Mach-Zehnder interferometers.
Trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harris founded Lightmatter alongside chief scientist Darius Bunandar, and COO and former Google employee Thomas Graham.
The firm has recently made a series of new senior hires, including the appointment of CFO Simona Jankowski from leading AI chip supplier Nvidia, where she was VP of investor relations and strategic finance.
Former Freescale Semiconductor CEO Richard Beyer and Alphabet executive Robin Washington have also joined the Lightmatter board of directors, further cementing the firm’s Silicon Valley connections.
Electronic bottleneck
GV general partner Erik Nordlander commented: “AI is evolving faster than anyone could have predicted, pushing the limits of data center technology.
“Photonics isn’t just a breakthrough; it’s the future of million-xPU data centers for AI. We’ve proudly supported Lightmatter since the beginning, and after six years, our belief in their vision has only grown stronger.
“Lightmatter is the definitive leader in data center photonics, and we’re excited to stand behind them as they unlock the next era of AI innovation and scale.”
With traditional electronic interconnects identified as a critical bottleneck for scaling AI computational workloads, Lightmatter’s Passage technology promises to address the challenge in a fundamentally different way, by using 3D-stacked photonic chips to move data.
“This breakthrough dramatically increases AI cluster bandwidth and performance, while reducing power consumption,” states the firm. “By transforming data movement across AI clusters, Lightmatter enables systems to scale efficiently, unlocking new levels of performance and preparing computing infrastructure for the demands of next-generation AI models.”
Tony Wang, portfolio manager of the advisory group T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund, added: “Lightmatter has the technology, leadership, and team to bring the industry the future of computing through photonics.
“The demand for AI supercomputers that will power the next wave of frontier AI models is strong and growing. We’re pleased to back Lightmatter on their mission to help power AI infrastructure.”
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