A leading domestic optical interconnect chip design company.
Recently, Shanghai Lankun Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "LUXSiLiCON") successfully completed two consecutive rounds of financing, raising a cumulative total of hundreds of millions of RMB.
The first round was led by Longqiu Capital (whose LPs include Ruijie Networks and WUS Printed Circuit) and GGVC; the second round was led by Photosynthesis Ventures and Longqiu Capital, with SMIC Capital participating as a follow-on investor. Existing shareholders such as Jinqiu Fund, Loongson Venture Capital, Tengye Venture Capital, Zhangjiang Haoheng, and Shuimu Alumni Fund continued to increase their stakes after completing seed round investments earlier this year.
Established in May 2024 and registered in Zhangjiang, Pudong, Shanghai, LUXSiLiCON is a leading domestic optical interconnect chip design company. The company focuses on the scale-up computing interconnect sector, prioritizing the development of high-bandwidth optical I/O (OIO) chips and chiplet integration solutions. Its products cover both NPO/CPO core chips and module miniaturization solutions.
Addressing Computing Cluster Interconnect Bottlenecks
LUXSiLiCON's founding team hails from Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and renowned companies at home and abroad. They possess decades of R&D experience in optical communications, full-stack self-developed capabilities ranging from silicon photonics devices to integrated circuits, and industrial expertise. The team has participated in multiple national-level scientific research projects, published numerous papers in top international journals in the field of silicon photonics, and holds multiple patents.
At the time of the company's establishment, AI computing infrastructure had already entered a phase of rapid expansion, while optical interconnect solutions within computing clusters were on the eve of large-scale implementation.
As the parameter scale of AI large models continues to expand, data exchange volumes between computing chips have increased dramatically. Traditional electrical interconnects are gradually hitting bottlenecks in terms of transmission distance, bandwidth, power consumption, and latency. Consequently, optical interconnects are penetrating from the network side to the computing side, shifting from primarily serving device-to-device interconnects to short-distance interconnects between computing chips.
In terms of technological evolution, optical interconnects are progressing from pluggable optical modules and board-level solutions like LPO towards NPO/CPO and further towards wafer-level and monolithic optoelectronic integration.
Industry forecasts suggest that by 2030, OIO for Scale-Up is expected to become a significant market for computing optical interconnects, with a potential market size of USD 5.5 billion and accounting for nearly 70% of the CPO market share.
Facing this technological window, LUXSiLiCON proactively targeted the ultimate solution for computing optical interconnects—OIO—which involves packaging the optical engine together with the computing chip, reducing the electrical signal transmission distance from tens of centimeters to just a few millimeters.
This path involves high technical difficulty and extremely high engineering thresholds. However, once successful, it can fundamentally resolve the bandwidth and energy consumption bottlenecks of computing cluster interconnects. It also dictates that breakthroughs cannot rely solely on the performance improvement of single optical devices.
Developing China's First OCI Standard Chip
LUXSiLiCON's core competitive advantage in the optical interconnect field lies in the comprehensive competition of optoelectronic co-design, advanced process manufacturing, and scaled mass production engineering capabilities.
On the design side, optical devices such as microrings require co-design with high-speed driver circuits, and wavelength stability requires closed-loop control formed jointly by optical and electrical paths. On the manufacturing side, optoelectronic chips must be integrated in wafer fabs and achieve monolithic optoelectronic integration through corresponding processes. On the mass production side, systematic design, verification, and supply chain coordination are required to ensure chip yield, consistency, and scalable production capacity.
Built upon this full-stack self-developed capability, LUXSiLiCON was able to deliver a product matrix covering different integration levels in a short period. Centered on the Scale-up computing interconnect sector, the company has established three major product lines: OIO, CPO, and NPO.
In the OIO direction, the company independently developed the 3.2T microring optical I/O chip—Denali, which is also the first product in China to meet the OCI standard. This chip utilizes microring wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and monolithic optoelectronic integration as its core technologies. Compared to optical modules, it achieves a 10x increase in bandwidth and integration density, and a 10x reduction in power consumption and cost.
In terms of compatibility, Denali's electrical side is compatible with the UCIe protocol, while its optical side supports the OCI standard. These respectively adapt to the two most mainstream protocols in electrical interconnects and optical interconnects between computing chips, directly reducing customers' integration adaptation costs and enabling chiplets to "output light directly."
In the CPO direction, the company launched linear direct-drive CPO chips targeting switch optical output scenarios. Microring transceivers and driver amplifiers are协同ly integrated via 3D stacking, achieving a single-chip bandwidth of 1.6Tb/s through linear direct drive across 8 channels, suitable for SerDes interfaces of switching or computing chips.
In the NPO direction, the company jointly launched optical interconnect switch cards and computing cards with partner clients. The total bandwidth per card can reach up to 6.4Tb/s, implemented using socket methods to suit rapidly deployable cluster scenarios.
Packaging integration solutions and monolithic solutions complement each other in the company's roadmap. The former targets rapid implementation and flexible configuration, while the latter aims for extreme bandwidth density and energy efficiency. Running these two paths in parallel allows LUXSiLiCON to serve the differentiated needs of various clients, such as switching and computing, at different paces.
The solid technical foundation quickly earned entry tickets into downstream markets.
Previously, LUXSiLiCON had advanced NPO interconnect innovations with a domestic AI leader's ten-thousand-card cluster, provided single-card 6.4T CPO interconnect solutions to core data center switch manufacturers, and supplied complete NPO socket modules to a leading domestic high-performance interconnect chip company, replacing pluggable optical modules to achieve card-to-card optical interconnects.
At the 22nd National High Performance Computing Academic Conference in October this year, LUXSiLiCON, along with Zheyuan Technology and MetaX, jointly released the "Next Generation Computing Power and Interconnect Innovation Consortium for Life World Models."
The company collaborates deeply with MetaX to build high-density die-to-die optical interconnect systems for GPU scenarios, launching China's first computing chiplet with integrated optical IO. Both parties incorporate the real load characteristics of life world models directly into architectural design inputs, achieving co-design of computing and interconnect within the same package body. This enables bandwidth, latency, and energy efficiency to optimize synchronously with increasing computing density, achieving nanosecond-level end-to-end latency and pJ/bit-level energy efficiency.
In terms of industrial chain collaboration, the company chooses to "drive the industrial chain with final products," engaging in deep cooperation with leading switch enterprises and computing chip companies. Partnering with Samtec and Luxshare Precision, they are accelerating the implementation of optical interconnect solutions in computing and switching scenarios.
Capital Bet, Supported by Zhangjiang's Industrial Ecosystem
LUXSiLiCON's financing pace is rare in the early-stage hard tech sector.
In January 2026, the company had just completed its seed round, with investors including Tengye Venture Capital, Jinqiu Fund, Huakong Dianke, and Zhangjiang Haoheng. At that time, products had not yet been commercially deployed on a large scale, and the team size was still in the single digits. Leveraging prior technical reserves, the team completed the first tape-out within three months of securing funding.
Immediately following this came the current two rounds accumulating hundreds of millions of yuan. Longqiu Capital served as the lead investor in both rounds, with its underlying LPs encompassing industrial chain leaders such as Ruijie Networks and WUS Printed Circuit. Additionally, SMIC Capital participated as a follow-on investor, highlighting the prominent role of industrial capital in this financing round.
Echoing the industrial capital, GGVC and Photosynthesis Ventures, as lead investors, represent market-oriented VCs betting on the OIO/CPO computing optical interconnect route.
Behind this financing, another unavoidable keyword is Zhangjiang.
LUXSiLiCON's connection with Zhangjiang began with the "Zhangjiang Cup" competition in August 2025, where its "Microring Optoelectronic Integrated Interconnect Chip" project won first prize. Subsequently, the company joined the 895 Entrepreneurship Camp and settled in the silicon photonics industrial cluster zone. Zhangjiang's involvement extended beyond industrial space. During the seed round financing in January 2026, Zhangjiang Haoheng invested, adding local Zhangjiang capital to the company's shareholder list.
From winning awards in competitions, incubation in entrepreneurship camps, settling in industrial zones, to the entry of Zhangjiang capital in the seed round, Zhangjiang's capital and industrial ecosystem intervened before LUXSiLiCON achieved large-scale commercialization. From startup to establishing a foothold in the optical interconnect field, this company took only two years.
This speed is inseparable from Zhangjiang's unique industrial "concentration." From silicon photonics EDA software and organic electro-optic materials to silicon photonic chip design, supporting electrical chips, and then manufacturing, testing, and packaging, Zhangjiang is forming a relatively complete silicon photonics industrial chain. This geographical clustering significantly compresses the hidden costs of engineering communication, allowing iteration speed to outpace remote collaboration.
The industrialization window for optical interconnects is opening. The depth of Zhangjiang's industrial chain supports LUXSiLiCON's implementation pace, and this is just the beginning.
Text | Zhou Yu Editor | Yi Da