OLIX Raises $312M to Build the AI Chip That Runs on Light, Not Electricity

The race to replace the GPU just got a $312 million vote of confidence.

OLIX Computing, a London-based chip startup formerly known as Flux Computing, has closed a Series B funding round at a $3.3 billion valuation. Arm, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, Hudson River Trading, and the UK government's Sovereign AI venture fund are among the backers.

The company builds what it calls Optical Tensor Processing Units (OTPUs): chips that use light instead of electricity to process the matrix math that powers modern AI. The argument is straightforward. Light is faster than electrons. It generates less heat. It consumes less power. If you can route AI computation through photonic circuits instead of copper interconnects, you can serve inference faster and cheaper than any GPU cluster currently on the market.

OLIX is not alone in making this bet. But it is the furthest along in the UK, and the government's decision to back it through the Sovereign AI fund signals that the UK has decided photonic AI hardware is a national strategic priority, not just a startup experiment.

The $312M Series B follows a $220M raise in February 2026, meaning OLIX has now raised over $530M in less than a year. The company plans to deliver its first commercial chips to customers in the second half of 2027.

What this means for founders

If you are building anything that runs on AI inference, the hardware beneath you is being rebuilt. OLIX is betting that the compute cost curve bends differently with photonics than with traditional silicon. That changes the unit economics of every AI application by 2028. Founders building inference-heavy products should be watching which infrastructure bets are getting this kind of capital, because the hardware layer will determine who can afford to scale.

Investors: Arm, Reed Hastings, Hudson River Trading, UK Sovereign AI Fund Round: Series B — $312M Valuation:$3.3 billion