(Bloomberg) -- Lightmatter Inc., a startup making computing products that use light in place of electricity, has raised a new round of funding that almost quadruples its valuation to $4.4 billion.
The company, which aims to overhaul the market for artificial intelligence computing power using the still-early technology, said Wednesday that it brought in $400 million in a Series D financing, led by new investor T. Rowe Price Associates. Existing investors such as GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, also participated in the round, the company said.
Lightmatter builds novel ways for computer chips to communicate with each other and complete calculations. Its technology uses silicon photonics with waveguides, which are tiny structures that redirect light. Traditionally, chips use wires to do such things.
The idea of using light in computing is not new, and could speed up processes while using less power. But it has long been tricky to build the components necessary to make it work.
Lightmatter sees recent advancements in artificial intelligence as an advantage: Tech companies have strained the market for high-power chips that can keep up with the computing requirements necessary for tasks, including training large language models such as those that power OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
The funding will help support the roll out of a device called Passage that can hold a variety of different types of computer chips, enabling them to share data optically. Optical fibers also allow multiple Passages to be linked together to create supercomputers, Lightmatter co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Nick Harris said. He added that the first such machines, which the company has been building for some customers, are slated to come online at the end of next year.
Harris said such supercomputers can be used to train powerful AI models more rapidly and with less power than is needed for traditional methods.
He wouldn’t name Lightmatter’s individual customers, but has previously said they include some of the largest chipmakers, as well as cloud service providers. The Mountain View, California-based company has raised $850 million so far.
--With assistance from Ian King.
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