Lightmatter

What Lightmatter does

Lightmatter is a Mountain View, California-based photonic computing and interconnect company founded in 2017 that develops silicon photonics technology for AI data center infrastructure. The company uses light to transmit data between chips and, in research-stage products, to perform matrix multiplication for AI workloads. Its product portfolio spans four families: the Passage 3D Photonic Interconnect platform (L200, L20, and M1000 variants for chip-to-chip and rack-scale optical I/O), the Guide Vertical Laser Surface Platform (VLSP) light engine family (Guide 1 and Guide DR for on-board and external laser sources), the Envise photonic AI accelerator, and the vClick/eClick fiber connectivity pluggable modules. The technology rests on proprietary components including a unique laser integration process (VLSP), an "edgeless" I/O architecture, and over 100 patents, with peer-reviewed validation in Nature (April 2025).

Name

Lightmatter

Legal name

Lightmatter, Inc.

Website

https://lightmatter.co

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Silicon Photonics Interconnect Hardware

NAICS

Fiber Optic Cable Manufacturing (335921)

SIC

Semiconductors & Related Devices (3674)

akta.pro primary industry

Optoelectronic / Photonics Foundries (Silicon Photonics/LED/Laser) (HDAHACAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Optical Transceivers (SFP/SFP+/SFP28/QSFP/QSFP-DD/OSFP) (HDAFAEAE), Optoelectronics & Photonics (LED/Laser/Optical ICs) (HDAHAAAH)

Keywords

• Silicon photonics chips
• Photonic interconnects
• Co-packaged optics
• AI data center networking
• Photonic AI accelerator

Headquarters

HQ city

Mountain View

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices6 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Hardware Sales (Passage & Guide Photonic Chips, Evaluation Kits): Primary revenue stream derived from sales of photonic interconnect chips (Passage L20/L200/M1000), light engines (Guide 1, Guide DR), vClick/eClick fiber array units, and evaluation kits (Passage EVK50, EVK100, M1000 EVK) to hyperscalers, switch/XPU vendors, and ASIC design houses.
2. Strategic Co-Development and ASIC Integration Engagements: Joint engineering programs and design partnerships with ASIC design houses (e.g., GUC) and IP vendors (Cadence, Synopsys, Qualcomm Technologies) to embed Passage CPO into customer XPU and switch chip packages, generating development fees and long-term design wins.
3. Standards-Body Ecosystem Monetization: Participation in OCP, UALink, XPO MSA, OIF, IEEE, and UCIe Consortium to monetize Passage-compatible photonic interconnect designs as the de facto standard for AI infrastructure CPO deployments.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Lightmatter designs and manufactures photonic chips and platforms that enable data communication and computation using light. The Passage 3D Photonic Interconnect Platform (L200, L20, M1000) delivers 32-114 Tbps of optical I/O for hyperscale AI data centers, the Guide VLSP Light Engine consolidates hundreds of lasers onto a single chip to power co-packaged optics, and vClick/eClick fiber attach solutions enable high-volume 3D CPO manufacturing. Together these products serve AI infrastructure interconnect, laser, and fiber connectivity needs for hyperscalers, switch/XPU vendors, and ASIC design houses.

Product overview

Lightmatter offers a comprehensive photonic supercomputer platform built as a platform-plus-modules architecture serving AI data center infrastructure. The Passage platform is the core 3D Photonic Interconnect Platform offering edgeless I/O architecture that eliminates the shoreline bottleneck, with module variants including Passage L200 (3D Co-Packaged Optics for frontier training), Passage L20 (Near-Package/On-Board Optics with BiDi), Passage M1000 EVK (3D Photonic Superchip reference platform), and reference systems Passage EVK100 and Passage EVK50. The Guide platform provides Very Large Scale Photonics (VLSP) light engines powering these interconnects, with Guide 1 and the liquid-cooled Guide DR LNIC serving as universal external light sources that replace conventional ELSFP modules. vClick Optics and eClick Optics are complementary fiber attach solutions enabling high-volume manufacturing and field serviceability of the Passage interconnect family. Envise is a separate photonic AI accelerator that performs matrix multiplication using light, representing Lightmatter's roadmap toward photonic compute. Together, these products form a complete photonic stack addressing interconnect (Passage), laser (Guide), fiber connectivity (vClick/eClick), and compute (Envise) needs for next-generation AI infrastructure.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Passage: Lightmatter's 3D photonic interconnect platform covering NPO, OBO, 2D/3D CPO, and 3D interposers, including Passage L200, L20, M1000, EVK100, and EVK50 products.
• Guide
• Envise
• vClick
• eClick

Products and services

• Passage 3D Photonic Interconnect Platform offering edgeless I/O architecture that eliminates the shoreline bottleneck, available in L-series (NPO, OBO, CPO) and M-series (3D photonic interposer) form factors for AI data center interconnects.
• Passage L200 3D Co-Packaged Optics product delivering 32-64 Tbps of optical I/O per chip using 112G PAM4 signaling and 3D chip-on-wafer integration, designed for frontier-scale AI training clusters.
• Passage L20 6.4 Tbps (each direction) unified optical engine for Near-Package Optics (NPO) and On-Board Optics (OBO) applications featuring BiDi multiplexing that reduces fiber management requirements by 50%.
• Passage M1000 EVK Reference platform for the 3D Photonic Superchip with 32 I/O chiplets 3D-stacked on a 4,000 mm² photonic interposer, delivering 114.6 Tbps of bidirectional bandwidth for hyperscale AI clusters.
• Passage EVK100 High-bandwidth bidirectional link reference platform delivering 1.6 Tbps unidirectional per fiber using 16-wavelength 112G PAM4 DWDM for scale-up and scale-out AI networks.
• Passage EVK50 World-first 16-wavelength bidirectional (BiDi) CPO link reference platform delivering 800 Gbps per fiber at 2.6 pJ/bit total link efficiency, demonstrating data center photonic stack readiness.
• Guide Very Large Scale Photonics (VLSP) light engine platform that consolidates hundreds of lasers and photonic components onto a single software-defined, self-healing chip, replacing conventional ELSFP modules as the universal light source for co-packaged optics.
• Guide 1 First-generation VLSP light engine consolidating up to 51.2 Tbps of I/O per module on a 16-wavelength DWDM grid at 1310 nm with sub-GHz wavelength precision, replacing nine conventional ELSFP light sources per module.
• Guide DR Industry-first liquid-cooled, high-density laser-NIC (LNIC) module built to OCP NIC 3.0 dimensions, integrating 64 high-power lasers and supporting up to 8 LNICs per 1RU switch tray for 409.6 Tbps of scale-up bandwidth.
• vClick Optics Industry-first detachable Fiber Array Unit (dFAU) with vertical coupling that survives advanced packaging mold-and-grind flows, integrating SENKO SEAT and MPC connector technologies with less than 1.5 dB insertion loss for high-volume 3D CPO manufacturing.
• eClick Optics High-performance edge-coupling fiber attach solution optimized for large-format hardware such as the Passage M1000 reference platform, providing low-loss edge-coupled optical interconnects as a complementary solution to vClick.
• Envise Photonic AI accelerator and the world's first photonic processor executing production AI workloads, performing matrix multiplication using light with 512 light beams through 200,000+ optical components; demonstrated near-electronic accuracy on ResNet, BERT, NanoGPT, DQN Atari, and semantic segmentation workloads, published in Nature April 2025.

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 8X improvement in optical bandwidth density vs conventional ELSFP modules (100 Tbps in 1RU vs ~18 ELSFP modules in 4RU)
• +13 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability6 records

Feature14 records

Partnerships

22 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship — joins nvlink fusion ecosystem to deliver passage cpo and npo products compatible with nvidia's optical and serdes technologies, reducing fiber/connector requirements by 50% and creating a unified platform for semi-custom xpus in nvidia's ecosystem., flagship — lightmatter initiated an ocp collaborative project and submitted a white paper titled "open collaboration for cpo-enabled ai systems" with 10 industry leaders., strategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative for cpo., strategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative and supplying photonic connectivity materials., strategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative., strategic — founding membership in the xpo multi-source agreement organized by arista networks., strategic — integration of qualcomm technologies' 112g pam4 optical serdes chiplet with lightmatter's passage l-series cpo architecture to achieve record 1.6 tbps per fiber., strategic — collaboration to integrate seat™ and mpc connector technologies into lightmatter's vclick detachable fau., flagship — strategic partnership to bring commercial passage 3d cpo solutions to market for ai hyperscalers., strategic — integration of synopsys' 224g serdes and ucie ip for 3nm into lightmatter's passage 3d co-packaged optics platform., strategic — combining cadence's silicon-proven serdes and ucie ip with lightmatter's passage optical engine for co-packaged optics., strategic — consortium member standardizing ai interconnect solutions., strategic — manufacturing partnership to mass produce the passage photonic interconnect platform., flagship — partnership to build the world's largest 3d photonics package., strategic — partnership to bring 3d photonics to market through advanced packaging flows., strategic — listed as a key manufacturing partner enabling high-volume production. and strategic — listed as a key manufacturing partner..

• NVIDIAflagship — joins nvlink fusion ecosystem to deliver passage cpo and npo products compatible with nvidia's optical and serdes technologies, reducing fiber/connector requirements by 50% and creating a unified platform for semi-custom xpus in nvidia's ecosystem.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 3 June 2026Lightmatter has joined the NVIDIA NVLink Fusion ecosystem to accelerate deployment of high-performance optical connectivity for AI infrastructure. Through this collaboration, Lightmatter will deliver Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) and Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) products that are compatible with NVIDIA's optical and SerDes technologies. By adapting Lightmatter's bi-directional optical link architecture for NVIDIA's optical and electrical technology, the partnership creates a unified platform for semi-custom AI factories while reducing fiber and connector requirements by 50%.
• Open Compute Project (OCP)flagship — lightmatter initiated an ocp collaborative project and submitted a white paper titled "open collaboration for cpo-enabled ai systems" with 10 industry leaders.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Lightmatter announced a new collaborative initiative within the Open Compute Project (OCP) to create open specifications for a shared reference architecture enabling interoperable Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) in next-generation AI systems. The proposal underscores Lightmatter's commitment to advancing AI infrastructure in open collaboration with ecosystem leaders including Celestica, Corning Incorporated, Dell Technologies, Flex, Foxconn Interconnect Technology, Hyve Solutions, Keysight, Qualcomm Technologies, and Quanta Cloud Technology.
• Celesticastrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative for cpo.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Celestica is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter to define open standards and reference architectures for interoperable Co-Packaged Optics in next-generation AI systems.
• Corning Incorporatedstrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative and supplying photonic connectivity materials.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Corning is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter. Corning's Photonics Connectivity Solutions supports the development of photonic materials, optical fibers, high-density connectivity, advanced packaging, and system-level design for CPO deployment at scale.
• Dell Technologiesstrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Dell Technologies is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter to define open standards for interoperable Co-Packaged Optics in next-generation AI systems.
• Flexstrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Flex is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter, contributing to CPO interoperability and certification frameworks essential for widespread deployment of CPO-based systems globally.
• Foxconn Interconnect Technologystrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Foxconn Interconnect Technology is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter, supporting the definition of common frameworks for CPO development and deployment.
• Hyve Solutionsstrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Hyve Solutions is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter, contributing to building an interoperable framework for hyperscalers to deploy scalable, energy-efficient compute clusters with CPO-enabled performance.
• Keysight Technologiesstrategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Keysight is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter, contributing high-speed electrical and optical validation and emulation expertise for CPO design to optically connected zettascale computing.
• Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT)strategic — supporting ocp reference architecture initiative.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 16 March 2026Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT) is a participating ecosystem leader in the OCP collaborative initiative led by Lightmatter, supporting standardization of Co-Packaged Optics to accelerate development of scalable, efficient AI data center solutions.
• Arista Networks (XPO MSA)strategic — founding membership in the xpo multi-source agreement organized by arista networks.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 12 March 2026Lightmatter announced its role as a founding member of the XPO (eXtra-dense Pluggable Optics) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA), organized by Arista Networks. The XPO MSA aims to define a next-generation optical transceiver form factor designed to meet the massive bandwidth, reliability, and density requirements of hyperscale AI data centers, with a 4X increase in switch rack density versus OSFP.
• Qualcomm Technologiesstrategic — integration of qualcomm technologies' 112g pam4 optical serdes chiplet with lightmatter's passage l-series cpo architecture to achieve record 1.6 tbps per fiber.Technology or Integration · 11 March 2026Lightmatter and Qualcomm Technologies achieved a historic milestone in AI interconnect performance: the successful sampling of Passage™ Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) chiplet, demonstrating a record-breaking 1.6 Tbps throughput per fiber. By leveraging a 16-wavelength DWDM architecture at 112G per SerDes lane, this platform provides up to 8X more bandwidth per fiber than existing NPO and CPO solutions. Building on the initiative established with Alphawave Semi (now part of Qualcomm Technologies).
• SENKO Advanced Componentsstrategic — collaboration to integrate seat™ and mpc connector technologies into lightmatter's vclick detachable fau.Technology or Integration · 11 March 2026Lightmatter collaborates with SENKO Advanced Components to integrate SEAT™ and Metallic PIC Coupler (MPC) technologies into vClick Optics for low-loss, field-serviceable CPO connections. vClick integrates these connector technologies with Lightmatter's vertically expanded-beam photonic technology to create a detachable optical interface between fiber arrays and photonic integrated circuits that is mold-and-grind compatible.
• Global Unichip Corp (GUC)flagship — strategic partnership to bring commercial passage 3d cpo solutions to market for ai hyperscalers.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 28 January 2026Lightmatter and Global Unichip Corp (GUC) announced a strategic partnership to bring commercial Passage™ 3D Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) solutions to market for AI hyperscalers. The collaboration integrates Lightmatter's revolutionary Passage photonic interconnect with GUC's state-of-the-art ASIC design services and advanced packaging expertise, including TSMC's CoWoS and SoIC technologies, to overcome critical connectivity bottlenecks limiting next-generation AI and HPC workload scaling.
• Synopsysstrategic — integration of synopsys' 224g serdes and ucie ip for 3nm into lightmatter's passage 3d co-packaged optics platform.Technology or Integration · 27 January 2026Lightmatter announced a strategic collaboration with Synopsys to integrate Synopsys' 224G SerDes and UCIe IP for 3nm process into Lightmatter's Passage 3D Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) platform for next-generation AI infrastructure. The integration aims to optimize bandwidth, reduce latency, and improve energy efficiency for AI accelerators and data centers by combining silicon-proven IP with Lightmatter's 3D photonic architecture. The collaboration will leverage Synopsys' AI-powered EDA tools to accelerate co-design of electrical and photonic components.
• Cadence Design Systemsstrategic — combining cadence's silicon-proven serdes and ucie ip with lightmatter's passage optical engine for co-packaged optics.Technology or Integration · 27 January 2026Lightmatter and Cadence announced a technical collaboration to develop co-packaged optics (CPO) solutions integrating Cadence's high-speed SerDes IP with Lightmatter's Passage optical engine for next-generation AI and high-performance computing environments. The collaboration aims to enable manufacturing-ready CPO by combining Cadence's UCIe IP and EDA expertise with Lightmatter's silicon photonics technology.
• UALink Consortiumstrategic — consortium member standardizing ai interconnect solutions.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 18 December 2024Lightmatter joined the UALink Consortium to propel AI interconnect into the photonic era, contributing silicon photonics expertise to standardize AI interconnect solutions.
• GlobalFoundriesstrategic — manufacturing partnership to mass produce the passage photonic interconnect platform.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 18 November 2024Lightmatter announced a partnership with GlobalFoundries to mass produce Passage™, the company's 3D photonic interconnect platform, leveraging GlobalFoundries' silicon photonics manufacturing capabilities for high-volume AI data center deployment.
• Amkor Technologyflagship — partnership to build the world's largest 3d photonics package.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 14 November 2024Lightmatter and Amkor Technology announced a partnership to build the world's largest 3D photonics package, enabling high-volume advanced packaging for Passage and the broader photonic interconnect platform.
• ASE (Advanced Semiconductor Engineering)strategic — partnership to bring 3d photonics to market through advanced packaging flows.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 14 November 2024Lightmatter and ASE announced a partnership to bring 3D photonics to market through ASE's advanced packaging flows. vClick Optics has been demonstrated as mold-and-grind compatible in ASE's advanced packaging flows.
• TSMCstrategic — listed as a key manufacturing partner enabling high-volume production.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024TSMC is listed as a Lightmatter manufacturing partner, supporting the company's photonic interconnect and laser platform production (specific agreement terms not publicly disclosed in the source material).
• Tower Semiconductorstrategic — listed as a key manufacturing partner.Strategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Tower Semiconductor is listed as a Lightmatter manufacturing partner supporting high-volume production capabilities (specific agreement terms not publicly disclosed in the source material).

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves10 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Intel Corporation: Intel's Silicon Photonics division develops integrated optical transceivers, co-packaged optics, and photonic interconnect for data centers — directly overlapping with Lightmatter's Passage CPO/NPO roadmap. Both target AI data center scale-up interconnects with similar silicon-photonics fab-based approaches.
• Broadcom Inc. Broadcom develops co-packaged optics, high-speed SerDes, and switch silicon for AI infrastructure (Tomahawk, Jericho). Its CPO and optical DSP roadmap competes directly with Lightmatter's Passage and Guide offerings for hyperscaler switch and XPU design wins.
• Marvell Technology: Marvell (Inphi) is a leading supplier of DSP and optical interconnect chips for cloud and AI data centers. Its COLORZ, coherent DSP, and emerging CPO offerings are direct alternatives to Lightmatter's Passage CPO/NPO for hyperscaler scale-out and scale-up networks.
• Coherent Corp: Coherent supplies lasers, optical components, and pluggable transceivers for data center interconnect. Its silicon photonics and laser engine roadmap overlaps with Lightmatter's Guide VLSP and Passage platform for CPO deployment.
• Lumentum Holdings: Lumentum is a leading supplier of high-power lasers and photonic components used in optical transceivers and CPO light sources. Its laser technology is a key input to Lightmatter's Guide VLSP platform and serves the same CPO customer set.

Broad incumbents

• NVIDIA Corporation: While Lightmatter is now part of the NVIDIA NVLink Fusion ecosystem, NVIDIA is also pursuing its own silicon photonics, OCI MSA, and quantum-inspired interconnect research. As the dominant AI compute platform, NVIDIA sets the architectural direction for CPO and can choose to favor or compete with Lightmatter.
• Cisco Systems (Acacia): Cisco, via Acacia, develops coherent optical interconnects and pluggable transceivers for hyperscale and AI data centers. As a broad incumbent in networking, it competes for the same hyperscaler interconnect dollars with both pluggable and emerging CPO solutions.

Emerging players

• Ayar Labs: Ayar Labs develops in-package optical I/O chiplets that use silicon photonics to bring optical connectivity inside chip packages. It targets the same AI compute interconnect bottleneck as Lightmatter's Passage but with a chiplet-level integration approach.
• Celestial AI: Celestial AI is developing a 'Photonic Fabric' that uses silicon photonics for memory-to-compute and chip-to-chip interconnect in AI systems. It overlaps with Lightmatter's photonic interconnect roadmap but emphasizes memory fabric use cases.
• Xscape Photonics: Xscape Photonics is an emerging startup developing multi-wavelength laser and photonic interconnect technologies for hyperscale AI data centers, targeting similar CPO and scale-up networking use cases as Lightmatter's Guide and Passage platforms.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/LightmatterCo
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@LightmatterInc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/lightmatter
• Facebookfacebook.com/lightmatterco

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles24 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds8 records

Investors19 records

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Lightmatter