Celestial AI Closes $175 Million Series C funding round

28 Mar 2024

Led by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, investment to scale commercialization of Photonic Fabric platform.

Celestial AI, developer of the Photonic Fabric™ optical interconnect technology platform, this week announced it raised $175 million in its Series C funding round led by Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT).

“This highly oversubscribed financing round is another testament to Celestial AI’s position to disrupt the market, and reflects the magnitude of business opportunity before us,” said Dave Lazovsky, Celestial AI founder and CEO.

“Today’s advanced AI models require exponentially more I/O bandwidth and memory capacity but are currently constrained by low bandwidth and high latency. Our Photonic Fabric technology is becoming the de facto standard for Accelerated Computing optical interconnectivity, driven by unparalleled performance and efficiency,” Lazovsky claimed.

In addition to USIT, the round included participation from new and existing investors including AMD Ventures, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Temasek, Temasek subsidiary Xora Innovation, IAG Capital Partners, Samsung Catalyst, Smart Global Holdings, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Engine Ventures, M-Ventures and Tyche Partners.

Amid the growth in demand for generative AI applications and next-generation data centers, hyperscalers are increasingly constrained by utility power availability, memory capacity and high cost of operation. Celestial AI says its Photonic Fabric optical interconnect technology addresses these critical challenges “by revolutionizing memory and compute fabrics.”

This solution, states the firm, “provides the foundational technology for users to continue making advancements in AI while maintaining scalable, sustainable and profitable business models. This latest round of funding will enable Celestial AI to execute multiple large-scale customer collaborations focused on commercializing its breakthrough Photonic Fabric technology platform.”

Thomas Tull, Chairman of USIT, said, “As AI continues to rapidly evolve, it’s imperative that the U.S. remains a global leader in AI innovation. The sophisticated work Celestial AI is doing on interconnectivity is critical to addressing key concerns across performance and energy efficiency to ensure the industry has the necessary infrastructure to continue to innovate and scale. We look forward to working with and supporting Celestial AI as it continues to set the industry standard.”

25x more bandwidth and memory

Celestial AI’s Photonic Fabric is said to be the industry’s only optical connectivity solution that enables the disaggregation of compute and memory, which allows each component to be leveraged and scaled most effectively. This breakthrough technology delivers over 25x greater bandwidth and memory capacity while reducing latency and power consumption by up to 10x compared to existing optical interconnect alternatives and copper.

“The exponential growth of AI models coupled with successful validation of Celestial AI’s Photonic Fabric technology in silicon has led to tremendous demand for this technology by hyperscalers,” said Chase Koch, Founder of KDT and Executive Vice President at Koch Industries.

“The potential of this technology to dramatically reduce the power consumption for processing extensive AI workloads enables a new era of sustainable and scalable compute capacity. We are thrilled to continue this transformative journey with Celestial AI.”