# OLIX Computing Raises $312M Series B at $3.3B Valuation for Photonic AI Chips

> UK-based OLIX Computing has raised a 312 million dollar Series B at a 3.3 billion dollar valuation, described as Europe's largest semiconductor funding round. The investor group is eye-catching in its own right, spanning Arm, trading firm Hudson River Trading and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and the valuation is roughly triple where the company sat just months earlier. The technology is the reason for the excitement. OLIX builds Optical Tensor Processing Units, chips that compute using light rather than electricity, aimed squarely at the energy-hungry job of AI inference. Photonic computing has promised big efficiency gains for years, and rising data-center power bills have made that promise suddenly urgent. The catch is timing. OLIX plans to ship its DX-1 chip to first customers only in the second half of 2027, so this is money raised well ahead of revenue, on the strength of a hard-tech bet. If photonic inference works at scale, the payoff is enormous. If it slips, as novel silicon often does, patience will be tested.

_Section: [AI Funding Tracker](https://www.wortins.com/funding) · Source: Photonics Spectra · Published Saturday, August 22, 2026_

## Wortins' read

UK-based OLIX Computing has raised a 312 million dollar Series B at a 3.3 billion dollar valuation, described as Europe's largest semiconductor funding round. The investor group is eye-catching in its own right, spanning Arm, trading firm Hudson River Trading and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, and the valuation is roughly triple where the company sat just months earlier. The technology is the reason for the excitement. OLIX builds Optical Tensor Processing Units, chips that compute using light rather than electricity, aimed squarely at the energy-hungry job of AI inference. Photonic computing has promised big efficiency gains for years, and rising data-center power bills have made that promise suddenly urgent. The catch is timing. OLIX plans to ship its DX-1 chip to first customers only in the second half of 2027, so this is money raised well ahead of revenue, on the strength of a hard-tech bet. If photonic inference works at scale, the payoff is enormous. If it slips, as novel silicon often does, patience will be tested.

## Source

[Read the full story at Photonics Spectra](https://www.photonics.com/Articles/OLIX-Raises-312M-Appoints-Board-Member-CFO/p5/a72463)

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