Silicon photonics startup Ayar Labs, which makes optical interconnect chips for high-performance computing, raises a $130M Series C from Nvidia, Intel, others
Dylan Martin / The Register :
Context & Ripple Effects
Ayar Labs' optical-interconnect push has been compounding since its $35M Series B in late 2020; this $130M Series C brings Nvidia and Intel in as strategic backers of the very chipmakers whose systems its interconnects would speed up. The later arc confirms the thesis held: by early 2026 the company had reached a $500M Series E at a $3.8B valuation, making this round the point where copper-replacement optics moved from venture bet to strategic infrastructure play.
First-order effects
- Nvidia and Intel convert from potential customers to shareholders, giving Ayar Labs both capital and privileged design-in access to the HPC and AI accelerator roadmaps where its optical I/O would plug in.
Second-order effects
- Rivals read the same demand signal: OpenLight's $34M Series A for custom application-specific photonic chips and Scintil Photonics' $58M Series B for AI-infrastructure photonic SoCs show the data-center interconnect market attracting a dedicated funding wave rather than a single winner.
Third-order effects
- If strategic investors keep underwriting the photonics supply base, interconnect becomes a contested layer of the AI stack — chipmakers hedge between in-house copper SerDes and external optical suppliers, and the startups that secure anchor customers early set the packaging and integration standards the rest must follow.
The trend: Data-center interconnect is shifting from copper toward silicon photonics, with the chipmakers who need the bandwidth buying stakes in the suppliers rather than waiting for them.