Aiming to advance its energy-efficient all-optical supercomputer, LightSolver has landed a €12.5 million investment from the European Innovation Council to support growth in high-performance computing.
LightSolver, an Israeli startup specialising in optical computing, is set to receive an initial €2.5 million grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) fund, along with a future €10 million equity investment, amounting to a total of €12.5 million.
As reported by Calcalist, the startup was among 68 companies selected from 969 applicants for the accelerator because of its first all-optical supercomputer, which is more energy-efficient than traditional computers.
LightSolver stated that it will leverage EIC resources to advance its platform’s commercialisation and boost growth in the high-performance computing (HPC) sector.
The company’s flagship laser processing unit (LPU) utilises light to perform complex mathematical operations in fields such as computer-aided engineering (CAE) and bioscience computations. It aims to develop the first all-optical supercomputer, which promises more energy efficiency than traditional computers, lowering industrial carbon footprints and the Total Cost of Computing (TCoC).
Upon securing the fund, LightSolver CEO and co-founder Ruti Ben-Shlomi explained that their laser-based processor could handle complex computations faster than GPUs. It is more environmentally friendly than quantum computers, as it does not require vacuum or ultracold temperatures, making it suitable for data centres.
She stated that global computing energy consumption is growing exponentially and becoming unsustainable, highlighting the need for a new computing paradigm.
The EIC is a European Commission initiative that aims to assist high-potential startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and researchers in developing and scaling innovations.
