Salience Labs Raises $125M Series B for All-Optical AI Data Center Switches

Salience Labs has secured a $125M Series B funding round led by Bullhound Capital, with participation from the investment arms of chipmaking rivals Intel Capital and AMD Ventures. The startup develops specialized all-optical circuit switching technology designed to eliminate traditional electronic signal conversions in AI data centers. By routing data dynamically on-chip over purely optical connections, the silicon photonics architecture targets the severe latency and power consumption bottlenecks currently choking massive GPU computing clusters. Salience Labs validated its approach by demonstrating a 64-port all-optical photonic switch at the ECOC 2026 conference in September, with denser 128-port and 256-port configurations actively under development. The fresh capital will be deployed toward volume manufacturing, geographic market expansion, and ongoing research and development as the broader optical circuit switching market approaches a projected $8B by the end of the decade. "Optical circuit switching will play a critical role in AI data center networking. As customers roll out optical links in their data centers, high-performance optical switches are needed to deliver the token economics that AI workloads demand." — Vaysh Kewada