Q.ANT secures €62 million to advance photonic processing for AI
With this Series A funding, the company plans to accelerate the commercial rollout of its TFLN-based technology, which it says uses less energy, eliminates on-chip heat and delivers higher compute density, addressing the energy use and scalability challenges of AI
Q.ANT, a company developing photonic processors, has announced a €62 million Series A financing round to accelerate the commercialisation of its technology for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The round is co-led by Cherry Ventures, UVC Partners and imec.xpand with participation from additional deep tech investors, including L-Bank, Verve Ventures, Grazia Equity, EXF Alpha of Venionaire Capital, LEA Partners, Onsight Ventures, and TRUMPF. According to Q.ANT, this investment ranks among Europe’s most significant deep tech funding rounds, laying the foundation for a fundamental shift in how AI is computed.
As AI infrastructure scales globally, traditional chip technology (CMOS) is reaching its physical limits, leading to performance stagnation, and electricity demand is reaching untenable levels. A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that by 2026, datacentre energy use is expected to surpass the entire annual electricity consumption of Japan. Q.ANT aims to address this issue with a different paradigm: computing with light instead of electricity to achieve higher performance and energy savings.
In five years, Q.ANT says it has brought to maturity what experts have pursued for decades: the world’s first commercial photonic processor for real-world AI and HPC workloads – executing complex AI operations much faster while saving significant amounts of energy. Built on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), the Q.ANT Native Processing Server integrates into today’s datacentres as a plug-in co-processor, with real-world tests promise up to 30 times higher energy efficiency, 50 times performance improvement, and the potential to increase datacentre capacity by 100 times, all without the need for complex active cooling systems, the company adds.
“Q.ANT was founded with a bold vision: to redefine the way the world computes by using light instead of electricity,” said Michael Förtsch, founder and CEO of Q.ANT. “This investment proves that Europe has both the ambition and the capital to lead – and gives us the strong partners we need to pursue our mission and help shape the future of computing.” Q.ANT was founded by Michael Förtsch as a spin-off from TRUMPF in 2018, developing independently light-based data processing.
With this funding, Q.ANT plans to scale production, advance development of next-generation photonic processors, grow its team across disciplines, and expand to the US to support a growing number of customer deployments. In addition, the company has announced it is strengthening its advisory board with two semiconductor experts: Hermann Hauser, founder of ARM, and Hermann Eul, former member of the Infineon management board and former CVP & GM of Intel.
“Q.ANT’s photonic chips stand to radically reduce datacentre operating costs while delivering the breakthrough performance demanded by next-generation AI and high-performance computing,” said Christian Meermann, founding partner at Cherry Ventures. “With early commercial momentum and a world-class team of deep tech experts, Q.ANT is uniquely positioned to redefine the trillion-dollar datacentre semiconductor landscape. We’re proud to back them in building the future of computing.”
