Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised May 31, 2026

Lightelligence

Shanghai Xizhi Technology Co., Ltd. known commonly as Lightelligence is a technology company that focuses on photonic integrated circuits.

Last revised
May 31, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
384 w
Citations
13
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Shanghai Xizhi Technology Co., Ltd.
Lightelligence
Native name
上海曦智科技股份有限公司
Company type
Public
SEHK: 1879
IndustrySemiconductor
Founded2017 (2017)
Founders
Headquarters
Key people
Shen Yichen (Chairman & CEO)
RevenueIncrease CN¥106.37 million (2025)
Decrease CN¥−1.34 billion (2025)
Total assetsDecrease CN¥1.14 billion (2025)
Total equityDecrease CN¥−4.25 billion (2025)
Number of employees
257 (2025)
Websitewww.lightelligence.ai Edit this at Wikidata
Footnotes / references
1

Shanghai Xizhi Technology Co., Ltd. known commonly as Lightelligence is a technology company that focuses on photonic integrated circuits.

Background

Lightelligence was founded in 2017 in Boston by MIT PhD Shen Yichen along with Marin Soljačić and two other MIT alumni.23 It was based on a 2017 Nature Photonics paper named "Deep learning with coherent nanophotonic circuits" where Shen was the lead author.3 The company was spun out of MIT shortly thereafter to commercialize the technology.3

Investors of the company include Tencent and Sequoia Capital.4

In April 2026, it was reported that Lightelligence was seeking an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.4 On 28 April, Lightelligence held its IPO to become a listed company. 5

Product history

In 2019, Lightelligence produced its first optical AI accelerator demo called COMET, which was able to accurately recognize handwritten digits.6

In 2021, Lightelligence released PACE (Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine), an integrated photonic–electronic platform.36

In June 2023, Lightelligence released Hummingbird, an optical network on chip processor for domain specific artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. In August, Lightelligence released Photowave, the first optical communications hardware designed for PCI Express and Compute Express Link connectivity.7

In February 2026, Lightelligence introduced PACE2.8

References

References

  1. "Global Offering" (PDF).
  2. "Accelerating AI at the speed of light". MIT News. 2 June 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  3. Wills, Stewart (December 2021). "Lightelligence Puts New Chip Through Its Paces". Optics and Photonics News. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  4. Chang, Minxiao (15 April 2026). "Lightelligence on track with IPO plans as China's AI photonics race gathers pace". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  5. Cao, Ann (28 April 2026). "Photonics chipmaker Lightelligence surges 400% in Hong Kong debut amid AI frenzy". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 28 April 2026.
  6. Johnston, Hamish (7 April 2022). "Optical chipmaker focuses on high-performance computing". Physics World. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  7. "Lightelligence Introduces Optical Interconnect for Composable Data Center Architectures". PIC (Photonics Integrated Circuits). 9 August 2023. Retrieved 21 April 2026.
  8. Davis, Shannon (19 February 2026). "Lightelligence Launches Second Generation Optoelectronic Accelerated Computing Card". Semiconductor Digest.