# Q.ANT

Canonical page: https://technooptimist.io/companies/q-ant
Q.ANT is a Stuttgart company, spun out of the machine maker TRUMPF, that builds processors doing AI maths with light instead of electrons. Its servers plug into ordinary data-centre racks as co-processors.

## In brief

- Second-gen photonic NPU running at the LRZ and Jülich supercomputing centres; IONOS first commercial buyer (May 2026).
- Raised €62M Series A in July 2025, Europe's largest for photonic computing.
- Opened a US headquarters in Austin in April 2026.

## Facts

- Founded: 2018
- Headquarters: DE
- Status: private
- Raised: $72M
- Website: https://qant.com
- Frontiers: [Computing](https://technooptimist.io/computing.md) (New kinds of computers)

## Programs

- [Photonic Native Processing Unit](https://technooptimist.io/computing/native-processing-unit.md) (Computing): Pilot; next: IONOS cloud rollout to business users (2026). Second generation running at LRZ and Jülich; IONOS rolling it out to cloud customers later in 2026.

## Technical approach

- **Material: Thin-film lithium niobate**: Its chips use thin-film lithium niobate, a crystal whose optical properties change fast with voltage, to shape light on chip.
- **Analog: Maths done by light itself**: Its LENA architecture performs operations such as multiplications on light signals directly, as analog co-processing, rather than switching transistors.
- **Fab: Own pilot line**: Chips come from a pilot line run with IMS CHIPS in Stuttgart; it plans US manufacturing as it scales.

## Open problems

- **Claims not yet independently confirmed** (open): Up to 30x energy efficiency and 50x performance are company figures for specific workloads; broad benchmarks are still missing.
- **Fitting into GPU software** (active research): It works as a co-processor beside GPUs, so useful work depends on offloading the right operations through standard software.

## Latest updates

- **19 May 2026**: IONOS becomes Q.ANT's first commercial customer for photonic AI servers. European cloud provider IONOS will deploy Q.ANT's Native Processing Server later in 2026 and offer it to its business users, the first commercial sale after deployments at LRZ and Jülich. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/ionos-becomes-q-ant-s-first-commercial-customer-for-photonic-ai-servers-797aeb39.md) · [original source](https://qant.com/news/q-ant-takes-photonic-ai-computing-commercial-as-ais-power-demand-surges/))
- **18 Mar 2026**: Q.ANT deploys second-generation photonic processors at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre. Q.ANT installed second-generation NPUs at LRZ under a German research ministry project on hybrid digital-analog HPC. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/q-ant-deploys-second-generation-photonic-processors-at-the-leibniz-5b6b2662.md) · [original source](https://bebeez.eu/2026/03/18/photonic-chip-company-q-ant-deploys-second-gen-photonic-processors-at-germanys-lrz/))
- **18 Nov 2025**: Jülich Supercomputing Centre and Q.ANT start a four-year photonic computing partnership. JSC will buy a Q.ANT Photonic Native Processing Server, integrate it into its modular supercomputing setup and develop algorithms suited to computing with light. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/julich-supercomputing-centre-and-q-ant-start-a-four-year-photonic-467be46c.md) · [original source](https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/computing-light-forschungszentrum-julich-q-ant-launch-collaboration-photonic-computing-0001))
- **18 Jul 2025**: Q.ANT raises €62M Series A to scale photonic AI processors and expand to the US. Q.ANT raised €62M ($72M), co-led by Cherry Ventures, UVC Partners and imec.xpand, to scale production of its photonic processors and build next-generation chips. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/q-ant-raises-62m-series-a-to-scale-photonic-ai-processors-and-expand-to-94e1c3d8.md) · [original source](https://www.verdict.co.uk/q-ant-funding-photonic-ai-processors/))

## Funding

| Date | Round | Amount | Post-money | Leads |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 18 Jul 2025 | Series A | $72M |   | Cherry Ventures, UVC Partners, imec.xpand |

## Partners, customers and investors

- IONOS (customer): First commercial customer for the Native Processing Server; rollout to its business users later in 2026.
- Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) (customer): Runs second-generation NPUs in a government-funded study of hybrid digital-analog HPC.
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (partner): Four-year co-design partnership; JSC bought a Native Processing Server.
- TRUMPF (investor): Q.ANT was spun out of TRUMPF in 2018; TRUMPF joined the Series A.

## People

- Michael Förtsch, Founder & CEO
- Bruno Spruth, CTO

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