Alphabet’s CapitalG, Microsoft’s M12, Micron Ventures, and NVIDIA join forces to back optical switch startup tackling communication bottlenecks in data centers, high-performance computing (HPC), and AI/ML systems.

EMERYVILLE, Calif.: nEye Systems, an optical switch startup founded by UC Berkeley technologists, has announced the completion of a $58 million Series B round of financing led by Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG, with participation from M12, Microsoft’s venture fund; Micron Ventures; NVIDIA; and Socratic Partners. This financing brings the company’s total funding to $72.5 million; nEye previously secured an unannounced Series A led by TEDA Holdings with support from Innolight Technology USA and additional Seed funds.

nEye’s innovative optical switch technology is poised to transform the AI fabric by addressing critical communication bottlenecks in data centers, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems. Current infrastructures, which rely primarily on electrical switches, face significant challenges in power consumption as well as bandwidth limitations. This hinders utilization and increases data center costs and power consumption. nEye's wafer-scale optical circuit switch (OCS) provides a more efficient and cost-effective solution by utilizing direct optical connections, which offer virtually unlimited bandwidth.

“nEye’s groundbreaking technology has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and scalability of AI infrastructure,” said James Luo, General Partner at CapitalG and nEye board member. “Their innovative optical circuit switch addresses critical bottlenecks facing data centers and high-performance computing. We are thrilled to partner with Professor Ming Wu and the entire nEye team on their audacious journey to redefine the landscape of AI computing.”

nEye has pioneered an industry-leading high radix silicon photonic switch with ultra-low power consumption. Leveraging over 10 years of research from Professor Ming Wu’s lab at UC Berkeley, nEye’s optical switch solution offers high performance, low cost, and a compact form factor. Compared to existing optical switch solutions, nEye’s technology is 100x smaller, 1,000x lower power consumption, 10,000x faster, and 10x lower cost.

“We are thrilled to have the support of CapitalG and our other esteemed investors as we scale our optical switch technology,” said Professor Ming Wu, co-founder of nEye Systems. “Our wafer-scale approach, backed by years of research at UC Berkeley, positions us to transform the AI fabric and enable the next generation of high-performance computing.”

Optical switches are gaining broad adoption, with Google already announcing optically reconfigurable AI supercomputers. nEye’s technology can be deployed in various applications, including network flattening, network resilience, and inside the rack to extend GPU cluster sizes and increase GPU utilization efficiency.

About nEye Systems

nEye Systems is an optical switch startup founded in 2020 to revolutionize the future of data centers. nEye’s MEMS-based silicon photonics optical circuit switches (OCS) eliminate critical bottlenecks in AI processing by enabling direct optical connections among thousands of GPUs and memory units. The company's SuperSwitch is an ultra-low power consumption, high radix, compact chip-scale design, offering hyperscale data centers enhanced performance, efficiency, and scalability. nEye has received venture funding from Alphabet independent growth fund CapitalG; M12, Microsoft’s venture fund; Micron Technology; and NVIDIA. Learn more at http://neye.ai.

About CapitalG

CapitalG, Alphabet's independent growth fund, invests in remarkable companies transforming the fields of enterprise infrastructure, AI, security, and data; fintech; and consumer services and marketplaces. CapitalG partners with growth stage companies in their transition from startup to scale up through hands-on assistance from its in-house growth team and connections to Google's engineering, product, marketing, sales and people operations experts worldwide. More than 3500 Googlers and Alphabet leaders have engaged with CapitalG portfolio companies, including Stripe, CrowdStrike, Databricks, Duolingo, Freshworks, Monzo, UiPath and Zscaler, among others. Learn more at https://capitalg.com/.

Fonte: Business Wire