Q.ANT Brings Photonic Chips to AI Data Centres in the US
German start-up Q.ANT is entering the US market with a new headquarters in Austin, Texas and the appointment of CTO Bruno Spruth.
By doing so, Q.ANT positions its photonic processor platform for next-generation data centre infrastructure.
Bruno, who is a semiconductor veteran, will lead Q.ANT’s North American operations, overseeing technological strategy and product development.
He previously served as Vice President of Power Processor Development at IBM, where he worked on advanced high-performance computing architectures.
Founded in 2018, Q.ANT develops photonic accelerators for AI and high-performance computing, offering a scalable and energy-efficient alternative to traditional transistor-based systems.
Cooling the âoverheatedâ data centre market
The expansion comes at a time of intense investment in AI infrastructure.
Hyperscalers including Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle have nearly doubled capital expenditure in 2026 from last year, collectively committing between US$660bn and US$690bn.
This surge is placing unprecedented pressure on data centres, where silicon-based processors are approaching physical and thermal limits. Quantum tunnelling, heat generation and power leakage are becoming persistent barriers as AI workloads scale.
The challenge is not just performance, but sustainability for data centre operators. Rising power consumption and cooling requirements are straining both infrastructure design and operational costs, complicating efforts to expand capacity.
Q.ANTâs entry into the US market is aimed squarely at this problem, introducing an alternative compute architecture that reduces heat output and energy demand at the source.
Dr. Michael Förtsch, CEO of Q.ANT, says: âBrunoâs deep semiconductor experience and record of global execution is vital for our growth in one of the worldâs most competitive and innovative markets for AI.
“Bruno has spent his career at the centre of modern computing. He knows its limits and that the future of innovation requires reinvention. That is exactly what we are doing at Q.ANT.”
Photonic computing for data centre efficiency
At the core of Q.ANT’s proposition is photonic computing: processors that use light rather than electricity to perform calculations. These processors significantly reduce resistance and heat generation, two of the main constraints in conventional chips.
The company claims its processors deliver up to 30 times greater energy efficiency and 50 times the performance of traditional silicon systems for AI and high-performance computing workloads.
Because the chips generate near-zero heat, they also remove the need for specialised cooling infrastructure, which is usually a major cost for data centres.
Built on a Thin-Film Lithium Niobate platform, the photonic chips are produced via Q.ANT’s pilot line in Stuttgart in collaboration with IMS Chips.
The resulting Native Processing Server is designed for straightforward integration into existing data centre environments, connecting via standard PCIe interfaces and operating alongside CPUs and GPUs as a co-processor.
Discussing the breakthrough technology, Bruno says: “Photonics is not an incremental step forward – it is a different way to compute entirely. Q.ANT has built something the industry has needed for a long time and it is time to bring this technology into the US market at scale.
“With its combination of top-tier technical universities, a mature semiconductor ecosystem and supportive regulatory environment, Austin is the ideal home for Q.ANT’s US headquarters.”
Scaling photonics in live environments
Q.ANT’s technology is already being deployed in real-world scenarios, running complex workloads across climate modelling, medical imaging and fusion energy research.
In 2025, the company became the first to deploy a commercial photonic processor in a live production environment at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Germany.
This milestone signals a shift from experimental to operational use, which is an important step for data centre operators seeking proven alternatives to silicon.
Over the next six months, Q.ANT plans to expand its US team to 20 employees, focusing on software development, photonics and digital system design.
This growth reflects an increasing demand for infrastructure capable of supporting AI workloads without exacerbating power and cooling constraints.
As hyperscalers continue to invest heavily in AI, technologies that can reduce energy consumption and thermal output are becoming central to data centre strategy.
Q.ANT’s photonic approach offers a pathway to address both challenges while maintaining performance at scale.
