Ayar Labs Raises $500M to Replace Copper With Light
Optical interconnect startup Ayar Labs lands massive Series E at $3.8B valuation led by Neuberger Berman.
Ayar Labs just pulled in a $500 million Series E round, pushing its valuation to $3.8 billion. Neuberger Berman led the deal.
The company's big bet: ripping out the copper wiring that connects semiconductors and replacing it with fiber optics. It's a fundamental rethink of how chips talk to each other — and the market is clearly buying in.
Copper has been the backbone of chip-to-chip communication for decades, but it's hitting physical limits as data demands skyrocket. Optical interconnects promise dramatically higher bandwidth and lower power consumption, which matters enormously as AI workloads push data centers to their breaking point.
At $3.8 billion, Ayar Labs is now one of the most valuable private companies in the semiconductor infrastructure space. The massive round signals deep investor conviction that light, not copper, is the future of chip connectivity.