Company: Lumai
Founder: Tim Well – CEO
Website: https://lumai.co.uk/
About Lumai
Spun out of world leading research at the University of Oxford, Lumai is tackling the existing limitations of AI compute by using 3D optics. Its AI accelerator results in 50 times performance increase while also minimising energy consumption by using only 10% of the power currently needed.
As a result, Lumai is making AI more sustainable and capable. The company enables AI deployment at scale with the fastest, most energy-efficient AI hardware. By using 3D optical computing, Lumai helps cloud computing providers and enterprises to unlock the full potential of AI.
The Lumai team includes some of the world’s brightest and most capable AI, datacentre and optical experts and scientists. Its leadership team also includes an expert in launching, developing, and growing deep-tech companies, world leaders in optical computing and quantum physics, and product and technical experts who bring in vast experience from their previous roles at Arm and Meta.
The challenge
AI is set to transform the work and lives of people around the world – improve health care, accelerate scientific discoveries, improve education and help mitigate the impact of environmental change. With datacentres already predicted to consume as much as 3% of global energy by 2030, Lumai was founded to solve a particular challenge: how can we enable this AI revolution without building hundreds more datacentres and consuming even more energy.
Existing AI computing is already struggling to meet the growing demands and is already using lots of energy. This will only continue to grow, signalling a dire need for a new era of computing to support the next generation of AI. Lumai’s 3D optical computing technology is the answer – taking AI processing far beyond the limitations of existing electronics.
Advancing AI
By utilising light instead of electricity, Lumai’s AI processor is highly scalable and versatile. The company’s ground-breaking technology can be tailored to transform scientific and industrial applications including machine learning, high-performance computing and more. The possibilities are endless.
Lumai’s technology is based on many years of ground-breaking research and the company has ambitious plans to become a global AI technology supplier, partnering with some of the most prodigious technology companies in the world.
Recent recognition
This year, Lumai was in the first cohort of carefully selected companies to complete Intel Ignite’s London programme, and its Head of Research, Xianxin Guo, was chosen to join the Royal Academy of Engineering’s prestigious Shott Accelerator 2024 programme. Lumai’s co-founder, James Spall, was also recently announced as part of the prestigious Photonics 100 list for 2025. To add to this recognition, Lumai won ‘Best Overall Technology’ at the recent OCP Future Technologies Symposium and was awarded $10,000.
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