QIA backs $80 million HyperLight optical chip round
Photonics firm HyperLight closes Series C round for TFLN tech
#Qatar #funding - Sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has joined the $80 million Series C funding round for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based photonics company HyperLight, which makes optical chips for AI data centres. The round was led by Taiwanese chipmaker’s venture arm MediaTek Innovation Fund, with participation from UMC Capital, electronics manufacturer Jabil, electronics manufacturer Foxconn, Singapore state investment platform EDBI, and CDIB-TEN Capital. HyperLight builds chips using thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) technology, designed to move data faster and more efficiently inside AI data centres and telecom networks. The funding will expand manufacturing capacity and scale deployment of its TFLN Chiplet Platform.
SO WHAT? - As AI data centres scale up, the bottleneck increasingly isn’t computing power itself but how fast data moves between chips and racks. Silicon photonics, which uses light (photons) instead of electrical signals to transmit data, has its own physical limits on bandwidth and voltage. HyperLight's bet is that thin-film lithium niobate has long been the preferred material for high-speed modulators. However, scaling production from lab-scale to commercial foundries is something that’s eluded the industry until now. Hyperlight aims to produce millions of chips per year, thereby matching the manufacturing scale of silicon photonics and making lithium niobate photonics a new standard.
KEY POINTS:
Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) joined an $80 million Series C round for HyperLight, a US photonics company developing optical chip technology for AI data centres and advanced connectivity infrastructure.
The round was led by MediaTek Innovation Fund, the venture arm of Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, with participation from UMC Capital, Jabil, Foxconn, EDBI, CDIB-TEN Capital and unnamed strategic investors from silicon IC and networking companies.
Existing investors Summit Partners, The Engine, Foothill Ventures and Xora Innovation continue to back the company.
HyperLight develops photonic chips based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) technology, enabling high-speed, energy-efficient optical connectivity for AI infrastructure, data centres and telecom networks.
The funding will expand HyperLight’s manufacturing capacity, accelerate customer qualification processes, and scale deployment of its TFLN Chiplet Platform.
HyperLight’s platform supports 200G-per-lane operation, with 400G-per-lane solutions now sampling, aimed at the higher lane speeds AI networks require as they scale.
The round builds on HyperLight’s recent manufacturing partnership with foundry operator UMC and Wavetek for high-volume production of the TFLN Chiplet Platform on 6-inch and 8-inch wafers.
ZOOM OUT - Qatar Investment Authority has made the semiconductor sector a priority in recent years. This year, QIA invested in Nvidia rival Positron AI, contributing to a $230 million Series B that valued the energy-efficient chipmaker at $1 billion. It also invested in Ayar Labs, another optical I/O developer working on multi-wavelength light sources for AI-scale computing. The fund has gone further upstream too, taking a minority stake in Japanese semiconductor equipment maker Kokusai Electric, anchoring an investment in specialised European private equity platform Ardian Semiconductor, and joining a Series D round for Dutch chipmaking metrology firm Nearfield Instruments. Together, these deals show QIA building a portfolio across the entire semiconductor supply chain, from design and connectivity through to manufacturing.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: QIA, Hyperlight
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