Milan, Italy – The 2D Photonics Group has been given approval by the European Commission for €211 million in funding by the Italian State to build a new class of optical technology designed to solve one of artificial intelligence’s most pressing physical limits: how data moves inside advanced computing systems.
Today’s AI systems are no longer held back by a lack of computing power. Instead, performance is increasingly constrained by the flow of data between chips, accelerators, and memory. As models grow larger and hardware becomes more dense, existing electrical and silicon photonic interconnects struggle to keep up, consuming more power, generating more heat, and slowing systems down.
CamGraPhIC, the wholly owned subsidiary and research arm of 2D Photonics, is tackling this problem head-on with graphene-based optical input/output (Optical I/O) technology that replaces existing slower, power-hungry, and high latency optical links.
By using graphene, a material with exceptional electronic and optical properties, the company’s approach enables a large increase in bandwidth density, while delivering lower latency and significantly lower energy consumption compared to the best silicon photonics available today, directly addressing one of the biggest obstacles to scaling AI and high-performance computing.
“This investment goes straight to the heart of what’s limiting AI today,” said Ben Jensen, CEO of 2D Photonics. “Compute keeps getting faster, but data movement hasn’t kept pace. Graphene-based optical technology offers a way to move vastly more data using far less power, which is exactly what the next generation of AI systems will require.”
The €211 million Italian State aid measure, approved by the European Commission, will beone of the largest single public investments ever made in an Italian deep-tech startup and will place the company among a small group of companies globally working to redefine how data is moved inside future AI infrastructure. While the project strengthens Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem, its relevance extends well beyond the region, targeting a challenge faced by AI systems worldwide.
The funding, under the European Commission’s State Aid Framework for research and development and innovation, will be used to industrialise CamGraPhIC’s optical interconnect platform for deployment in AI accelerators, high-performance computing systems, and advanced data centres, where bandwidth density and energy efficiency have become critical bottlenecks.
A key pillar of the project is the construction of a pilot manufacturing facility near Milan, designed to take graphene photonics from advanced research into real-world production. The facility will support device qualification, early manufacturing runs, and eventual transfer to high-volume foundry processes, creating a direct pathway from lab to large-scale deployment.
The project is expected to create over 150 highly skilled jobs across photonics engineering, materials science, and semiconductor manufacturing. The pilot line is scheduled to become operational in 2028 enabling early engagement with system integrators and computing platform providers.
“The measure approval allows us to move quickly from innovation to execution,” Marco Romagnoli, Co-founder and CSO added. “By building manufacturing capability alongside the technology, we’re laying the groundwork for graphene photonics to become a practical part of future AI systems, not just a research promise.”
CamGraPhIC’s Optical I/O platform is designed for a future where optical communication must move closer to the processor itself to sustain AI performance gains. Rather than offering incremental improvements, the technology aims to reset the limits of bandwidth, power efficiency, and scalability inside next-generation compute architectures.
About 2D Photonics SpA Group
By moving beyond the limits of traditional silicon and integrating graphene into next-generation photonic circuits, 2D Photonics delivers simplified designs with superior bandwidth density and energy efficiency for telecom, datacom and high-performance computing applications.
The company raised €25 million in its Series A round in February 2025 from CDP Venture Capital, Nato Innovation Fund, Join Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Bosch Ventures, Indaco Ventures and Frontier IP Group PLC. 2D Photonics designs, develops and manufactures advanced photonic solutions that empower faster, leaner and more sustainable data transfer across next-generation networks and computing systems. CamGraPhIC is a 2D Photonics company.
About CamGraPhIC Srl
CamGraPhIC Srl, the research arm of 2D Photonics, is developing graphene-based optical interconnect solutions for advanced computing applications, founded by Marco Romagnoli and Prof Andrea Ferrari. As part of the 2D Photonics SpA group, the company focuses on enabling next-generation data communication technologies for AI, data centres, and high-performance computing.