Today, Astera Labs completed its acquisition of aiXscale Photonics GmbH, following the definitive agreement announced in October 2025. This marks an important step in our journey to deliver comprehensive connectivity solutions for AI Infrastructure 2.0.
Why Photonics Matter for Scale-Up AI
As AI systems scale to hundreds of tightly integrated accelerators per rack, optical connectivity has become critical to meeting aggressive bandwidth and power requirements. Photonic chiplets represent one of the key enabling technologies for next-generation AI infrastructure performance and efficiency.
AiXscale Photonics brings specialized expertise in optical I/O precision glass coupler technology—specifically engineered to solve the challenge of efficiently coupling light between photonic integrated circuits and optical fibers in high-density applications. This capability, combined with Astera Labs’ fabric switch and signal conditioning portfolio, positions us to develop purpose-built photonic scale-up solutions for rack-scale AI deployments.
What This Means for Our Customers
We believe this acquisition strengthens our ability to support customers as they transition to AI Infrastructure 2.0—the next wave of open standards-based AI platforms that demand high-bandwidth communication across scale-up networks. Whether our customers are deploying merchant GPU systems or custom accelerators, we’re committed to providing the connectivity solutions that unlock their architecture’s full potential.
We remain committed to both copper-based and optical connectivity solutions. Copper continues to be essential for current AI infrastructure deployments, and we expect this acquisition to give our customers the flexibility to choose the right technology for their specific applications—all from a single trusted partner.
Welcoming the Team
The aiXscale team, founded by Dr. Jeremy Witzens and Dr. Florian Merget, is expected to continue operating from Aachen, Germany, maintaining close ties to manufacturing partners and the research ecosystem at RWTH Aachen University. Their deep photonic integration expertise and advanced fiber-chip coupling technology will be instrumental as we expand our Intelligent Connectivity Platform.
Looking Ahead
We look forward to working with the aiXscale team to integrate their technology into our product roadmap as market demand matures for optical connectivity in AI infrastructure.
Follow our journey as we work to deliver the next generation of connectivity for rack-scale AI.