• US semiconductor startup Ayar Labs raised USD 500M to scale production capacity and accelerate deployment of its optical AI infrastructure technology.
• The round included Qatar Investment Authority alongside global institutional and investors across the AI and semiconductor ecosystem.
• Founded in 2015, Ayar Labs develops optical interconnect technology replacing copper connections to improve AI data center performance and efficiency.

Ayar Labs

US-based Ayar Labs closed USD 500 million in a Series E funding round led by Neuberger Berman. The round also saw participation from institutional investors such as AKR Invest, Insight Partners, Sequoia Global Equities, and 1789 Capital. Additionally, from the Middle East, the round saw participation from institutional investor Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). 

Moreover it also saw participation from  Alchip Technologies, and MediaTek. All these join existing investors such as Advent Global Opportunities, Boardman Bay Capital Management, IAG Capital Partners, Light Street Capital, Playground Global, AMD Ventures, and NVIDIA.

Founded in 2015 by Mark Wade, Vladimir Stojanovic, Chen Sun, Rajeev Ram, and Milos Popovic,  Ayar Labs is a semiconductor startup. It focuses on developing optical interconnect technologies (co-packaged optics) that replace traditional electrical connections in chips and data centers. 

AI Infrastructure 

The company’s AI scale-up CPO solution seeks to unlock AI performance and profitability. This is through replacing bandwidth-limited copper interconnects with optical connectivity. It claims that this provides the performance and efficiency gains required for next-generation AI infrastructure. 

Looking ahead, the company aims to scale high-volume production and test capacity to accelerate the deployment of its CPO solution. It also aims to expand global operations, including at its new Hsinchu, Taiwan, office, and strengthen ecosystem partnerships.

“AI infrastructure is hitting a power wall driven by interconnect inefficiency. As bandwidth demands explode, copper becomes the bottleneck — consuming too much power and limiting AI throughput per watt and per dollar. Co-packaged optics overcomes these barriers, enabling thousands of GPUs to operate as a unified system. This funding fuels our ability to meet the demands of hyperscale AI,” said Mark Wade, CEO and co-founder of Ayar Labs.