Almere, Flevoland and Q.ANT Team Up for Computing with Light

German deep-tech company Q.ANT, Innovally and Horizon Flevoland marked their collaboration today at SEMICON Europa in Munich with a ceremony commemorating the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The intent is to develop, validate and scale concrete applications of photonic computing in and from Almere and Flevoland. Q.ANT develops processors that run AI calculations with light instead of electrons, opening up a new category of computing. The aim: enabling a new generation of AI that today’s technologies cannot deliver in a commercially viable way – in terms of cost, energy efficiency and computing power.

The ceremony was attended by Michael Förtsch (CEO, Q.ANT), Michiel Sweers (Director-General for Foreign Economic Relations, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Toon van Dijk (Regional Minister for Economic Affairs, Province of Flevoland), Eric-Mark Huitema (CEO, High Tech NL), Chris van Voorden (Director, Horizon Flevoland), Yannes Koning (Director High Tech Almere) and Danny Frietman (Director, Innovally).

Addressing AI’s energy challenge

AI needs ever more computing power, and with it ever more energy. Q.ANT offers a different route: photonic processors that compute with light. They work as co-processors alongside existing CPUs and GPUs in data centres, and, according to the company, are orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than conventional processors. Photonic processors can also make AI models leaner: complex functions that inflate digital models can be computed with light, using less data and fewer parameters. Q.ANT is working towards making the technology more widely available.

Almere and Flevoland offer a growing high-tech ecosystem, centred on High Tech Almere, where companies, government and knowledge institutions work together on semiconductors, AI and digital infrastructure. Almere is also the intended location of the Institute for Advanced Materials & Metrology (IAMM), a national initiative now in development to strengthen the Dutch semiconductor industry through advanced materials and metrology. With a strong digital infrastructure and growing demand for computing power in the region, Flevoland is a natural place to test photonic computing in practice, together with future end users.

From intention to application

Q.ANT contributes through providing its photonic computing technology and expertise, while taking the lead on the technical objectives of the pilots. Innovally and Horizon Flevoland connect the cooperation with end users, partners, talent and funding opportunities in the region.

“Flevoland is where international technology companies can grow close to the Dutch high-tech chain. With Q.ANT, a German deep-tech leader, we strengthen the Dutch–German corridor, and we will connect Q.ANT with partners and future users in our region. We hope this will be the first of many such collaborations.” — Chris van Voorden, Director, Horizon Flevoland

The collaboration starts with the market. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the partners will develop a joint roadmap focused on: • Use cases and market development: finding the most promising applications and end users;

• Pilots and demonstrators: proving the value of photonic computing in practice, for example in digital infrastructure, logistics, healthcare and public-sector applications;

• Commercialisation and positioning: exploring how pilots can lead to customer relationships and international visibility;

• Talent and ecosystem: education, internships and a growing community around photonic AI and energyefficient chips, centred on High Tech Almere.

The post Almere, Flevoland and Q.ANT Team Up for Computing with Light appeared first on Semiconductor Digest.