An Oxford photonics company, spun out of the Universities of Oxford and Munster, building optical switches that move data in AI data centres using light.
Salience Labs builds chips and switches that use light instead of electricity to move data. Modern AI data centres link thousands of processors and spend a lot of energy converting signals between light and electricity as data passes through switches. Salience makes optical circuit switches, which set up a path for the light itself so it never has to be converted. The company has shown a 32-port switch that was validated by test-equipment maker Keysight and a 64-port all-optical switch shown at the ECOC conference, in a standard 1U rack unit. Larger 128- and 256-port versions are planned.
The company was founded in 2021 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford and the University of Munster, building on more than a decade of research. It began by developing a multi-chip processor that pairs a photonics chip with standard electronics. Chief executive and co-founder Vaysh Kewada, working with co-founder and chief technology officer Johannes Feldmann, described that design as combining "the ultra-fast speed of photonics, the flexibility of electronics and the manufacturability of CMOS", and has said that optical circuit switching will play a critical role in AI data-centre networking. The company does not appear to publish a formal values statement, so none is quoted here.
Salience is based in Oxfordshire. A City AM report describes it as an Oxford company, and the Milton Park science and business park lists it as a resident, with a mission of building photonic switch chips for faster, more energy efficient AI infrastructure. The company also has an engineering team in California and says it plans a second West Coast office, so some roles may involve working with colleagues in the United States. The chief executive is reported to split her time between locations. Its photonic chips are designed to be made in volume by production foundries using standard CMOS processes, which means its engineers work closely with factory partners.
In April 2023 the company appointed Chris Porthouse as chief product officer. He previously held the same role at Imagination Technologies and senior general manager and vice-president roles at Arm, which shows that experienced UK chip people are drawn to the company. The company describes Oxford and Munster as sources of its research, and its approach has been to take work from physics labs and turn it into manufacturable products.
A photonics hardware company like this employs photonic and electronic chip designers, optical and test engineers, firmware and software developers, manufacturing and supply-chain staff, and product, sales and operations teams. Physics, electronic engineering, materials science and computer science all feed into this kind of work, so there are several different ways to approach a career in photonic chips.
Website: saliencelabs.ai
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