gpu-alternative
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Neurophos
Neurophos is an Austin-based photonics startup building an Optical Processing Unit (OPU) that uses light instead of electrons to run AI inference. Spun out of Duke University and the Metacept incubator, the company packs more than a million micron-scale metamaterial optical modulators - roughly 10,000x smaller than conventional photonic elements - onto a single chip to perform the matrix-vector multiplication at the heart of large AI models. It positions the OPU as an energy-efficient, drop-in alternative to GPUs for data-center inference, and raised a $110M Series A led by Gates Frontier in January 2026.
Zettascale Computing Corporation
Zettascale Computing Corporation (formerly Exa Laboratories) builds polymorphic XPU chips that reconfigure their own dataflow architecture to match each AI model - delivering up to 27.6x greater energy efficiency than NVIDIA H100 GPUs. Founded by a 21-year-old Swedish dropout and a Cambridge-trained engineer, this YC S24 company is shipping prototype Grasshopper cards fully manufactured in America, with commercial release planned for 2026. Their ambition: make zettascale computing sustainable and become the hardware substrate for all future AI.