Volantis to unveil photonic AI chip with up to 10

Volantis, a startup backed by Sam Altman, has unveiled plans for the A-1 AI accelerator. In this device, memory is connected to the computing core via light rather than copper wires.

The main problem with modern GPUs lies in the so-called "shoreline": memory can only be placed around the perimeter of the chip, literally millimeters away from it. Because of this, even AMD's MI455X tops out at 432 GB.

A photonic interposer allows moving memory several centimeters away from the chip, eliminating this limitation. The company promises up to 10 TB of memory within a single package, with speeds reaching 240 TB/s.

These specs should be sufficient to run a 20-trillion-parameter model at a speed of 10,000 tokens per second per user.

Unlike competitors Lightmatter and Celestial AI, Volantis embeds micro-lasers directly into the interposer rather than sourcing light from external units. The rest of the technology will be licensed from other developers.

• A working prototype is expected in 12–18 months
• Mass production is not yet discussed