Ayar Labs has secured an additional $150 million in funding, bringing the company’s total primary capital raised in 2026 to $650 million, as it moves its co-packaged optics technology toward high-volume manufacturing for AI infrastructure.
Ayar Labs also disclosed that cloud IT and data center infrastructure provider Wiwynn made a strategic investment earlier in 2026, joining strategic backers that include Alchip, AMD, Intel, MediaTek and NVIDIA.
The new capital will support product development, validation, expansion of Ayar Labs’ manufacturing ecosystem and its transition toward high-volume production.
The company is also establishing a new Bengaluru Design Center in India as it expands engineering capacity alongside existing operations in the U.S. and Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Ayar Labs develops co-packaged optics, or CPO, for AI scale-up infrastructure. Its optical engines are designed to move high-bandwidth connectivity closer to computing systems as AI architectures expand from individual accelerators into larger multi-rack deployments.
As those systems scale, conventional copper electrical interconnects can face increasing power and physical limitations. Ayar Labs’ CPO technology is designed to provide high-bandwidth, energy-efficient optical connectivity while reducing the power requirements and complexity associated with copper interconnects.
The Bengaluru facility will build end-to-end engineering capabilities across silicon product development. Sankara Venkateswaran, Vice President of Silicon Engineering, is overseeing the office, with Senior Director of Engineering Arun Balachandar serving as site lead.
Ayar Labs is also rapidly hiring across its locations as it works to commercialize and manufacture its optical technology at scale. The company was founded in 2015 and is backed by venture firms and strategic semiconductor investors including AMD, Applied Ventures, MediaTek, NVIDIA and VentureTech Alliance.
KEY QUOTES:
“Copper interconnect is becoming the limiting factor for AI scale-up. This funding allows us to move faster on manufacturing-ready co-packaged optics at scale. We’re deepening our work across the foundry and packaging ecosystem and growing our engineering capacity to support customer programs worldwide.”
Mark Wade, CEO and Co-Founder of Ayar Labs
“Co-packaged optics is a foundational technology for the next generation of AI and cloud data centers. Through our collaboration and investment with Ayar Labs, we see a clear path to new architectures that reduce the power and complexity limits of copper interconnects, powering rack-scale deployment for the next wave of hyperscale AI data centers.”
William Lin, President and CEO of Wiwynn
“Our new Bengaluru Design Center supports our transition from technology development to commercialization and production. As customer demand and the complexity of our product roadmap increase, expanding our global engineering capacity will help us execute faster, support multiple development programs, and collaborate more closely with partners and customers across the region.”
Sankara Venkateswaran, Vice President of Silicon Engineering at Ayar Labs
