The NATO Innovation Fund announced today its investment in CamGraPhIC Srl, a leader in energy-efficient, high-bandwidth optical interconnect technology and a wholly owned subsidiary of 2D Photonics as part of a €25 million Series A equity funding round. Co-investors include CDP Venture Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Join Capital, Bosch Ventures, Frontier IP Group plc, and Indaco Venture Partners.

This investment, raised through 2D Photonics, will be directly utilised by CamGraPhIC to support their continued innovation in graphene photonics transceivers, an advanced technology set to revolutionize artificial intelligence and cellular data transmission by improving energy efficiency, reducing latency, and increasing bandwidth.

In line with the NATO Innovation Fund’s goal to boost the deep tech innovation ecosystem across the 24 nations backing us, CamGraPhIC Srl will use this investment to enhance its research and development capabilities in Pisa and establish a pilot manufacturing line in the Milan area.

The new facilities will demonstrate a scalable mass production process compatible with commercial semiconductor and photonics foundries, reinforcing CamGraPhIC’s position at the forefront of next-generation optical technology. CamGraPhIC is also working to support the new activities of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy via the National Chips Fund.

In addition, the funding will be used to build out the senior team and initiate the scale-up of the technology in Milan, Italy, focusing on optimizing production for large-scale manufacturing in a semiconductor foundry environment.

CamGraPhIC’s graphene-based transceivers provide a viable, stable, and highly scalable alternative to current silicon-based photonics. These advanced transceivers deliver much higher bandwidth density, and exceptional latency performance while consuming 80% less energy compared to traditional pluggable data centre optical transceivers. This innovation is particularly effective for transferring large volumes of data between Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which are fundamental to Generative AI and high-performance computing.

Additionally, the transceivers operate efficiently across a far broader temperature range, eliminating the need for complex ex and costly cooling systems. Thanks to a simplified device architecture enabled by a unique integration of ultra-high-quality graphene into the photonic structure, these transceivers are also more cost-effective to manufacture.

Initially targeting AI GPU to HBM interconnects, 2D Photonics with CamGraPhIC also plan to expand into avionics, automotive advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and space applications, where their rugged, high-performance transceivers offer significant technical and commercial advantages over existing technologies.