iPronics, a Spanish startup making programmable optical circuits for AI data centers, has raised $125M with Nvidia joining Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital in the round. The funding, reported as a Series B, backs development of the company’s second-generation optical circuit switching, or OCS, technology.
OCS appliances route light rather than packets, acting as the modern equivalent of a telephone switchboard to connect the thousands of accelerators expected in next-generation AI clusters. Nvidia’s interest fits its broader push into optics: in March the chipmaker invested $2B each in Coherent, Lumentum and Marvell, with part of that money earmarked for OCS.
Valencia-based iPronics builds programmable photonic processors that can be reconfigured in software, letting data center operators shift optical paths without swapping hardware. The company argues that as racks move from dozens of GPUs to hundreds or thousands, electrical switching becomes a bottleneck and optical circuit switches become essential for scaling.
The fresh capital will fund denser, faster and cheaper OCS gear and expand the engineering team. Financial terms beyond the round size were not disclosed, and iPronics has not named a valuation.
The investment adds to a wave of funding flowing into photonics startups as hyperscalers and chip vendors race to solve the interconnect problem. With optical switching positioned as critical infrastructure for AI scale-out, startups in the space are attracting strategic capital from the very companies that will buy their gear.
