Lightmatter, a leader in photonic supercomputing, has raised $400 million in Series D funding, quadrupling its valuation to $4.4 billion. This investment will enable the company to ready its Passage technology for mass deployment in partner data centers, facilitating the scaling required for sustained AI innovation. “We’re not just advancing AI infrastructure – we’re reinventing it,” said Lightmatter co-founder and CEO Nick Harris.
The company’s Passage technology leverages 3D-stacked photonics chips to move data, dramatically increasing AI cluster bandwidth and performance while reducing power consumption. This breakthrough addresses a critical bottleneck in traditional electronic interconnects, which are struggling to keep pace with the growing need for high-bandwidth, low-latency data movement. Investors T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and GV (Google Ventures) participated in the funding round, with Tony Wang of T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund and Erik Nordlander of GV praising Lightmatter’s technology and leadership.
The demand for extreme-scale data centers is unprecedented, driven by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Traditional electronic interconnects are becoming a critical bottleneck in these data centers, unable to keep pace with the growing need for high-bandwidth, low-latency data movement. This limitation hinders the scaling of AI workloads, making it essential to develop innovative solutions that can overcome this challenge.
Lightmatter, a pioneer in photonic supercomputing, has developed a groundbreaking technology that addresses this bottleneck. Their Passage technology leverages 3D-stacked photonics chips to move data, dramatically increasing AI cluster bandwidth and performance while reducing power consumption. This breakthrough enables systems to scale efficiently, unlocking new levels of performance and preparing computing infrastructure for the demands of next-generation AI models.
Lightmatter’s Passage technology is poised to revolutionize AI data center infrastructure by transforming data movement across AI clusters. By freeing XPU shoreline to support more memory, Passage addresses another critical bottleneck for scaling AI performance. This innovation has far-reaching implications, enabling the development of supercomputers that can power the next wave of frontier AI models.
Lightmatter’s $400 million Series D fundraise, led by new investors advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., brings the total capital raised to date to $850 million. This financing will enable Lightmatter to ready Passage for mass deployment in partner data centers, accelerating their ability to scale and deliver the supercomputers of tomorrow today. The company has also expanded its footprint with an office in Toronto and continues to grow its team, solidifying its position as a leader in photonic supercomputing.
Industry leaders have taken notice of Lightmatter’s innovative technology and vision. Tony Wang, portfolio manager of the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund, praised Lightmatter’s leadership and team, stating that they have the technology and expertise to bring the industry the future of computing through photonics. Erik Nordlander, General Partner at GV, emphasized the importance of photonics in enabling million-xPU data centers for AI, solidifying Lightmatter’s position as a definitive leader in data center photonics.
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