Optical supercomputer startup gets €2.5 million EIC grant

LightSolver, an Israeli optical computing startup, is to receive an initial grant of €2.5 million from the EIC Fund combined with a future equity investment of €10 million, totalling €12.5M.

LightSolver’s processor, the Laser Processing Unit (LPU), uses light to execute complex mathematical operations in applications such as CAE and bio-science computations.

“The amount of energy consumed by computing globally has been growing exponentially and is becoming unsustainable, hence the need for a new computing paradigm,” says LightSolver CEO and co-founder Ruti Ben-Shlomi.

“Our laser-based processor can tackle large and complex computations faster than GPUs. It is also much less environmentally demanding than quantum computers, requiring no vacuum or ultracold temperatures which means that it can live in a data centre,”

The European Innovation Council (EIC) is an initiative by the European Commission to support high-potential startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and researchers in developing and scaling breakthrough innovations.