Salience Labs Limited, a leader in photonic solutions targeting connectivity for AI datacenter infrastructure, has successfully secured $30 million in Series A financing led by ICM HPQC Fund and Applied Ventures, LLC—the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, Inc.—with participation from Braavos and continued support from existing investors including Oxford Sciences Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Silicon Catalyst, and industry pioneer Jalal Bagherli. The substantial funding round underscores the company’s commitment to advancing its innovative optical switch technology, which is designed to seamlessly connect AI clusters while delivering high bandwidth, low latency, and significant power savings. Co-founder and CEO Vaysh Kewada remarked, “What our customers want is a photonic switch to connect their AI clusters that is compatible with existing infrastructure while delivering high bandwidth, low latency and significant power savings. The completion of this round will further our development and help us bring our product to customers to enable not just the savings, but large cluster connectivity,” adding that the collaboration with strategic investors, who are leaders in the semiconductor space, will accelerate their go-to-market schedule and drive the evolution of data center interconnectivity based on over a decade of dedicated research.
The financing round arrives at a pivotal moment as experts in the field recognize silicon photonics as a transformative technology capable of delivering unprecedented energy efficiency and performance enhancements for AI data centers. Industry leaders such as Anand Kamannavar, Vice President and Global Head of Applied Ventures, highlighted that “Silicon photonics is a promising technology to deliver significant advancements in energy-efficient performance for AI data centers,” noting the potential for Salience Labs’ optical switch solution to enable a new generation of interconnect network architectures that facilitate faster and more efficient AI systems. Dr. Jalal Bagherli, an investor with deep expertise in semiconductor innovation, commended the company’s portfolio of silicon photonics products and its customer-focused approach, emphasizing that these factors position Salience Labs as a clear leader poised to capitalize on an enormous market opportunity. Dr. William Jeffrey, Chairman of the technical advisory committee on the ICM HPQC Fund and newly appointed Board Member of Salience Labs, added that “Salience Lab’s optical switches will enable unprecedented bandwidth and scalability for the next generation of AI and high-performance data centers. By leveraging light, they will unlock the full capability of modern servers while decreasing power consumption and cost.” The infusion of new capital is expected to accelerate product development and market deployment, marking a significant step forward in the evolution of AI connectivity solutions that promise to reshape data center performance and efficiency.
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