Opticore wins $5M seed funding to develop optical GPUs for lower energy AI...

19 Dec 2024

...and Sivers and Ayar Labs plan new optical I/O solutions for AI infrastructure.

Opticore, a new photonic computing company, has this week announced its official launch and initial funding. The Fremont, California-based startup says it is aiming “to revolutionize data centers and AI with an innovative approach to photonic computing.“

Opticore is developing optical processing units (OPUs) that perform the same computational tasks as GPUs but using light and waveguides instead of electrical components allowing computation at multiple orders of magnitude lower energy costs and higher clock speeds.

“The era of computing with light has arrived with the Opticore technology. Our architecture overcomes the memory bottlenecks in CMOS electronics and allows for processing billions of parameters in a single chip using 100-fold lower energy. Our chips are fabricated with standard foundry processes. This funding allows us to build a much larger chip,” said Zaijun Chen and Ryan Hamerly, co-founders.

As photonics has become an essential in datacenters for chip-to-chip communications, computing with light will fully unlock its potential for the next-generation energy efficient supercomputers. “I had never seen such a smart computing architecture before. Opticore technology with co-packaging optics is the solution for scalable AI computing”, said Prof. Mengjie Yu, co-founder of Opticore and Professor at UC Berkeley.

“AI models are limited in their size by the power of today’s supercomputers. It’s just not economically viable to train models that are much bigger. This technology could make it possible to leapfrog to machine-learning models that otherwise would not be reachable in the near future”, Prof. Dirk Englund, an advisor to Opticore, told MIT News.

The funding round was funded by Alex Turnbull of Sagax Capital and Karan Danthi of Jetha Global, two renowned deep tech investors. It was also backed by Dorjee Sun of Bioeconomy, a climate-focused investor, among others.

“The Opticore team has lit a path to a state of the world in which high performance computing, climate targets and supply chain security are totally compatible. They have done this with a novel and creative approach on existing platforms that can be fabricated in the US, EU and Singapore” said Alex Turnbull at Sagax Capital.

“At Jetha Global, our extensive research shows that optics will play a crucial role in the evolution of data centers, initially transforming the interconnect layer and eventually extending to the xPUs,” said Karan Danthi, Chief Investment Officer at Jetha Global.

Sivers and Ayar Labs plan new optical I/O solutions for AI

Sivers Semiconductors, a developer of photonics and wireless technologies, has announced it is in “advanced discussions” with strategic customer, Ayar Labs, to partner on manufacturing at scale to support deployment of Ayar’s in-package optical interconnect solutions.

Sivers says that successful large-scale deployment of high-bandwidth, energy-efficient AI datacenters will require a move from copper to optical I/O interconnects: “a necessity now widely acknowledged by many in the industry including ecosystem pioneers such as Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and several hyperscalers.”

The Sivers statement continues: “The emphasis is shifting from initial development of solutions to the enablement of a robust manufacturing eco-system in the next couple of years to support deployments at scale. Ayar Labs is a key innovator at the forefront of developing optical I/O solutions for AI data centers.”

Mark Wade, CEO of Ayar Labs, said “Ayar Labs intends to expand its relationship with Sivers Semiconductors through NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) and pre-purchase of products to prepare for high volume deployment of optical I/O to address bandwidth bottlenecks in AI infrastructure.”

Vickram Vathulya, CEO of Sivers Semiconductors, commented, “Having recently announced closing their $155 million Series D round led by Advent Global Opportunities, Light Street Capital and with participation from Nvidia and others, Ayar Labs is well-positioned to be a significant customer for Sivers’ laser arrays as shipment volumes are expected to ramp in the next 18-24 months.

“The continued enthusiasm and funding from top-tier chipmakers, foundries, and investment firms into Ayar is a testament to the market conviction in their optical I/O solution as a breakthrough innovation for AI datacenters. Sivers’ high-performance laser arrays are critical enablers for optical I/O solutions. We look forward to this next stage of our collaboration centered around achieving manufacturing readiness and production scale,” Vathulya said.