The memory wall is about to be bridged with light. volantis, a san francisco chip startup, raised…
the memory wall is about to be bridged with light. volantis, a san francisco chip startup, raised $88m on oct 1 to build a-1, a photonic inference system that links processors to a far larger pool of memory.
hbm scarcity made the interconnect the new battleground.
Context
Volantis, a San Francisco semiconductor startup, announced an 88 million dollar Series A on October 1, led by Lachy Groom and Abstract, for a total of 97 million dollars raised. Its press release says the photonic architecture targets inference for models above 20 trillion parameters at up to 10,000 tokens per second per user.
Reuters via CNA says the approach links AI chips to far more memory using a technology already in hundreds of millions of iPhones.
The 20 trillion parameter and 10,000 tokens per second figures are Volantis's own targets for an architecture still being built, not measured results.
'A-1' as the system name was not matched in the sources read, so it is unsupported here, not refuted.
'The interconnect became the new battleground' is the author's opinion.
Related work
- Volantis: our 88M Series A ↗The company's own post.
- PR Newswire release, Oct 1 ↗Targets and investors.
- SiliconANGLE ↗Independent report on the round.
Watch next
- Watch for a working prototype or customer benchmark from Volantis.
Sources
- Volantis, Series A postvolantissemi.ai
- PR Newswire, Oct 1, 2026prnewswire.com
- CNA/Reuters, Oct 1, 2026channelnewsasia.com
- SiliconANGLE, Oct 1, 2026siliconangle.com
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 9 October 2026 at 19:42 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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