# Salience Labs raises $125M Series B to develop optical switches for AI datacenters

Digest AI · Hardware & Compute · published 2026-10-14T13:00:24Z · updated 2026-10-14T14:10:02Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/salience-labs-raises-125m-series-b-to-develop-optical-switches-for-ai

## Summary

Salience Labs, an Oxford-based company, has secured an oversubscribed **$125 million Series B** led by Bullhound Capital. Participants include AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading, and the British Business Bank, alongside existing investors. The funding will accelerate deployment of its **optical circuit switching technology**, higher-volume manufacturing, and expansion in Silicon Valley. The announcement follows a demonstration of a **64-port silicon photonic switch** at ECOC 2026, with future **128- and 256-port** products planned for development.

Salience’s technology targets a bottleneck in AI datacenters: **data movement between GPUs**. While faster processors improve compute, delays in communication can limit overall system efficiency. Traditional electrical switching converts optical signals to electrical and back, introducing latency. Salience’s **all-optical switches** avoid this conversion, aiming for lower latency and higher throughput. The company’s **OC-32M module** (a 32-input/32-output switch) claims **10-nanosecond latency**, **<300 microseconds reconfiguration time**, **<2 dB insertion loss**, and **<1 watt per port**. These specs are company-reported, not independently verified. The **64-port demo** marks an industry first in silicon photonic optical circuit switching, but scaling to **128- and 256-port** systems remains future work.

The funding will support manufacturing scale, U.S. expansion, and partnerships with **Keysight Technologies** and **Tower Semiconductor** for deployment. CEO **Vaysh Kewada** and CTO **Johannes Feldmann** lead the company, which was founded in 2021. Investor backing from AMD and Intel signals interest in AI infrastructure, though no integration or deployment commitments were announced.

## Key points

- Salience Labs raises **$125M Series B** led by Bullhound Capital, with AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, and others participating
- Company demonstrates **64-port silicon photonic switch** at ECOC 2026, targeting **128- and 256-port** future products
- Funding will accelerate manufacturing scale, U.S. expansion, and partnerships for AI datacenter optical switching deployment

## Why it matters

Optical switching reduces latency in AI datacenters by eliminating electrical-optical conversions, potentially improving GPU communication efficiency. This could lower energy use and speed up training/inference for large-scale AI workloads, though real-world gains depend on integration and workload testing.

## Sources

1. [Salience Labs Raises $125M Series B to Scale Optical Switching for AI Datacenters](https://unite.ai/salience-labs-125m-series-b-optical-switching-ai) (Unite.AI, 2026-10-14)
2. [Salience Labs, which develops specialized all-optical circuit switching tech for AI data centers, raised a $125M Series B led by Bullhound Capital](https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/14/salience-labs-raises-125m-in-funding-after-showcasing-worlds-most-advanced-fully-optical-circuit-switching-tech) (siliconangle.com, 2026-10-14)

## Cite

Digest AI, "Salience Labs raises $125M Series B to develop optical switches for AI datacenters", 14 October 2026, https://digestai.news/story/salience-labs-raises-125m-series-b-to-develop-optical-switches-for-ai

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