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Hardcore Finance has learned that Lingxi Photonix, a CPO and OIO optical engine company (Beijing Lingxi Photonix Technology Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as "Lingxi Photonix"), recently completed an angel round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB. This round was jointly invested by six institutions including Shunxi Fund, Puhua Capital, Tsing Innovation Capital, Pengchen Investment, CAS Star, and Grit Ventures. The investors include well-known state-owned and market-oriented institutions. The funds raised will be mainly used for the prototype development of 3.2T/6.4T optical engines and the building of an early-stage team.

Lingxi Photonix was founded in September 2025 and spun off from the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as "XIOPM, CAS"). The company's founder, Wang Binhao, received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Zhejiang University and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. He serves as a researcher at the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a doctoral supervisor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was formerly a research scientist at HP Labs in the United States. The company's core team comes from XIOPM, CAS, other first-class domestic research institutes, and principal scientists from global technology giants.

The company focuses on the independent collaborative development of silicon photonic chips based on micro-ring modulators and CMOS analog electronic chips, and combines advanced packaging technology for optoelectronic chips to build high-performance optical engines. Its goal is to provide high-bandwidth, low-power optical interconnect solutions for AI computing clusters and accelerate the localization process of core optical interconnect technologies.

Hardcore Finance has learned that with the continued development of AI large models, computing clusters have an increasingly urgent demand for Scale-up and Scale-out capabilities. Traditional copper cables are limited by transmission distance, while pluggable optical modules face bottlenecks such as high power consumption and limited signal integrity. Against this backdrop, Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) and Optical Input/Output (OIO) technologies are becoming key directions for next-generation high-density optical interconnects.

According to forecasts by the Changjiang Securities Research Institute, under conservative assumptions, the market space for CPO optical engines is expected to reach USD 7.2 billion, while the market space for OIO optical engines could reach as high as USD 25.9 billion. "The future market size of the co-packaged optical engine market may be more than 10 times that of the existing optical module market," judged Wang Binhao, founder of Lingxi Photonix.

Following this technological trend, Lingxi Photonix has launched its core product — a silicon photonic engine based on micro-ring modulators. This solution has significant advantages such as small size, low power consumption, high bandwidth density, and natural support for wavelength division multiplexing. "The size of a micro-ring modulator is only one-thousandth that of current commercial solutions, with outstanding advantages in power consumption and integration density, making it particularly suitable for advanced packaging with GPUs, switch chips, and others," Wang Binhao told Hardcore Finance.

At present, the company has built full-link technical capabilities covering optical chips, electronic chips, lasers, and advanced packaging, and has completed verification of key technologies and demos such as wavelength locking, single-channel 500Gb/s micro-ring modulators, and 16×256Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing.

Measured 256Gb/s NRZ and 256Gb/s, 448Gb/s, 500Gb/s PAM4 ultra-high-speed eye diagrams of optical chips (Source: Company)

Measured 16x256 Gb/S PAM4 array multi-channel eye diagrams (Source: Company)

Although international giants such as NVIDIA and Broadcom have already taken the lead in the CPO optical engine field, the domestic industry as a whole is still in its early stages. "This is a track where we have every opportunity to compete with international peers on the same stage," said Wang Binhao. "There may be teams in China that have accumulated expertise in certain technical points, but teams like ours that master the full stack of key technologies are still few."

Wang Binhao revealed that the company has already engaged in early technical discussions and joint verification with a number of leading domestic switch chip manufacturers, AI chip companies, and large internet companies.

In the manufacturing process, Lingxi Photonix's technical path has significant supply chain autonomy advantages: its optical chips are based on silicon photonics processes, and its electronic chips are mainly analog circuits, neither of which needs to rely on advanced processes below 7nm. At present, mainstream domestic foundries already have the corresponding mass production capabilities.

Physical image of co-packaged optoelectronic chips (Source: Company)

"We are taping out on multiple mass production lines at home and abroad, and simultaneously advancing reliability and consistency verification work," said Wang Binhao. This strategy effectively reduces dependence on external supply chains and provides a guarantee for rapid product iteration and cost control.

In terms of product planning, Lingxi Photonix will advance along two technical routes: first, a multi-channel parallel solution, mainly targeting Scale Out co-packaging scenarios for switch chips, with a prototype demo expected to be launched in the second half of 2026; second, a wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) solution, mainly targeting Scale Up co-packaging needs for computing chips such as GPUs/NPUs, with a prototype demo planned for completion in 2027.

"The parallel solution has a faster commercialization pace, while wavelength division multiplexing targets higher bandwidth density and longer-term computing evolution needs," Wang Binhao summarized.

Investor perspectives:

Shunxi Fund stated: The current AI Scaling law is driving the rapid expansion of large-scale computing clusters, and the internal interconnect communication method greatly affects cluster computing utilization and overall power consumption. Highly integrated silicon photonics interconnects (CPO/OIO) can provide higher bandwidth density and lower communication power consumption for computing clusters. Lingxi Photonix's core team comes from XIOPM and has deep accumulation and core advantages in fields such as micro-ring-based optical I/O design, optoelectronic hybrid integration, and micro-ring wavelength design. We are optimistic that the company will grow into a leading company in the next-generation silicon photonics field.

Puhua Capital stated: With a deep understanding of the industry and rich capital market experience, Puhua Capital has established a "capital + industry" dual-wheel driving strategy, committed to investing early, in new things, in specialization, and in growth, acting as a cultivator and accelerator of entrepreneurship and innovation, and has continuously invested in and supported the development of more than 700 startup enterprises. Lingxi Photonix focuses on micro-ring-based optical engine technology and has a solid theoretical foundation and the richest practical experience in the optical I/O field. We look forward to the company relying on its technical accumulation and industrial collaboration in the future to continue to play a leading role in the large-scale commercialization of silicon photonics technology and the reconstruction of industry chain value, injecting core momentum into China's efforts to seize the initiative in global silicon photonics industry competition and promote technological upgrades in AI data centers, next-generation communications, and other fields.

Tsing Innovation Capital stated: The development of AI computing power will bring huge demand for high-speed optical interconnects. The company provides micro-ring-based optical engine technology, which can deliver high bandwidth density and reduce transmission loss, with performance reaching the leading domestic level. In the future, we will continue to support the company's development and look forward to it growing into an industry leader.

CAS Star stated: During the period of rapid expansion of investment in computing infrastructure, large model training and inference require larger-scale Scale-up and lower-power Scale out solutions. CPO and optical I/O optical interconnect solutions are relatively certain directions for the future, with huge potential market space. Lingxi Photonix's micro-ring-based solution has advantages such as high integration, high bandwidth density, and low power consumption, and has also received deep support from potential industrial resources and partners. The core founding team originates from the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and possesses long-term technical accumulation and forward-looking layout. It is a team with a solid theoretical foundation and the richest practical experience in China in the fields of optical I/O and optical frequency combs. We are optimistic about the team's accumulation and the technical route it has adopted, and firmly invest in the layout.

Grit Ventures stated: Along with the construction wave of AI computing centers at home and abroad, the scale of computing clusters continues to increase, and the importance of network interconnection is becoming increasingly prominent. Traditional Scale Up domains are mainly based on electrical connections, while Scale Out domains are mainly based on optical module connections. However, super nodes make electrical connections increasingly challenging, and there is also the power consumption issue of optical modules. The industry urgently needs innovative connection solutions. Optical interconnects (CPO/OIO) have emerged as the times require. Optical interconnects have the characteristics of lower latency, greater bandwidth, and lower power consumption, and have great application potential. Industrial giants and startups at home and abroad are all advancing industrialization. Lingxi Photonix's core team originates from the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics and masters the full set of silicon photonic micro-ring optical engine technologies, with both rich research and industrialization capabilities, and is expected to lead the development of China's optical interconnect industry. Grit Ventures is firmly optimistic about the Lingxi team and the company's future development, bringing innovative products and solutions to the market.