About us-Lightelligence

Our Team

Lightelligence was founded in 2017. With its top technology R&D team and experienced engineering team, through close cooperation with leaders in the semiconductor, cloud computing, finance, autonomous driving industries, Lightelligence has transformed the cutting-edge technology of photonics into groundbreaking computing solutions, which not only bring exponential improvements in computing power, but also dramatically reduce energy consumption.

250

Global employees

of chip designers
have 10+ years of experience

Leadership

Dr. Yichen Shen Founder, CEO

Yichen received his PhD degree in Physics in 2016 from MIT, where his research focused on nanophotonics and artificial intelligence. Yichen has published 40 peer-reviewed journal papers and has filed 20 US patents, including first authored papers in Science, Nature Photonics, and ICML. Yichen has been honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30 and MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35.

Dr. Huaiyu Meng Co-Founder, CTO

Huaiyu received his PhD degree in Electric Engineering from MIT, where his research focused on integrated photonics in CMOS platform for telecom, datacom, and bio-sensing applications. Huaiyu got his Bachelor’s degree from Nanyang Technological University in Electric Engineering with first class honor.

Maurice Steinman VP of Engineering

Maurice (Mo) Steinman is vice president of engineering at Lightelligence. He has enjoyed a career in the tech industry lasting more than thirty-five years, working for such companies as Digital, Compaq, HP, Intel and AMD, where he held the title of senior fellow before joining Lightelligence. A veteran of many successful tapeouts and product introductions, Steinman has expertise in SoC architecture, SoC interconnect, memory subsystems, and energy management. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer and Systems Engineering and is named as an inventor on over fifty US patents.

Spencer Powers Co-Founder

Spencer is a co-founder and advisor to Lightelligence. Spencer received an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BA in Economics from Boston College. Prior to Lightelligence, Spencer co-founded Lux Labs, another MIT spinout, and ArtLifting, a nationally recognized Benefit Corporation.

Bill Zhang Deputy General Manager

Bill is Deputy General Manager at Lightelligence. He received his MBA from MIT Sloan School of Business. Bill has rich experiences in finance and operations, with prior experience at YF Capital and Barclays Investment Bank.

Dr. Marin Soljacic Co-Founder

Marin is a professor of Physics at MIT and a co-founder of Lightelligence. Marin earned BS degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Physics from Princeton. Marin is also a co-founder of WiTricity Corporation and Lux Labs. In 2008, Marin was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Culture

Global Leader
In Optical Computing

Transform cutting edge thinking into
real world solutions

MISSION

Open yet Focused
Courageous but Humble
Imaginative and Pragmatic

VALUES

Unleash the power of optical computing

VISION

achievements

2017

- Dr. Yichen Shen's pioneering work was
published with front cover honors by Nature Photonics

2019

- MIT Technology Review "50 Smart Companies"
- Released the prototype of its optical AI computer, the first of its kind in the world

2020

- EE Times Silicon 100
- KPMG "Core Technology" Cutting Edge Enterprise 50

2021

- EE Times Silicon 100
- KPMG "Core Technology" Cutting Edge Enterprise 50
- Released its latest photonics computing processor PACE
- Dr. Yichen Shen named Innovator Under 35 by MIT Technology Review

2022

- EE Times Sillicon 100
- Dr. Yichen Shen been named a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum
- CRN’s 10 Hottest Semiconductor Startup Companies

2023

-Released Hummingbird oNOC, the worlds first Optical Network on Chip
-Photowave™ wins Best in show award at Flash Memory Summit for PCIe/CXL disaggregated memory connectivity

2024

Photowave™ is available to customers worldwide as QSFP and CDFP Active optical cables along with PCIe and OCP card form factors

2025

-We released PACE 2, an optoelectronic accelerated computing card, integrating over 40,000 photonic devices and supporting a 128×128 matrix operation, marking the first application of our technology in complex commercial models.
-We jointly launched LightSphere X, the world's first GPU supernode solution supporting fully by distributed optical interconnect and optical switching, according to Frost & Sullivan. The solution won the Superior Al Leader (SAIL) Award at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).
-We jointly launched China's first xPU-CPO co-packaged optics prototype system, co-packaging the optical engine and computing chip on the same substrate to shorten transmission distance.