Nvidia, AMD and Intel Invest in a Chip Startup Ayar Labs
 Ayar Labs Inc., which specializes in using light to transfer data between chips, scored investment from the three biggest US semiconductor designers as the industry pursues more efficient AI processing.
Optical interconnect designer Ayar Labs raised $155 million and is now valued at more than $1 billion
Ayara Labs’ official announcement on startup’s valuation
The San Jose, California-based company said it raised $155 million from Nvidia Corp., AMD Ventures and Intel Capital in a funding round led by Advent Global Opportunities and Light Street Capital. With this investment, Ayar Labs’ valuation exceeded $1 billion, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Wade told Bloomberg News.
The artificial intelligence boom has been a power-hungry and expensive venture to fund. The technology enabling it, primarily Nvidia graphics processing units designed to handle many simultaneous tasks at once, demands the rapid and constant transmission of data in server systems.
That creates bottlenecks, requires plenty of power and generates significant heat in operation. Ayar Labs’ solution to these challenges uses light, or photons, to speed up data transmission.
