Technology capable of operating faster than electrons may face difficulties in reaching the commercial level. On April 28, 2026, Lightelligence issued shares at a price of HK$183.2 per share, and on the first day of trading, it closed at HK$886, representing a growth of 383.62%. However, the company's financial situation remains complex: revenue for 2025 was 106 million yuan, while the net loss after adjustment reached 271 million, and research and development (R&D) expenses amounted to 479 million.
Investments are directed towards a new architecture because slow copper cables create bottlenecks in the bandwidth of graphics processing units (GPUs). The question arises whether light can become the basis of the next generation of computing infrastructure. The company, founded by Shen Yichen, who published a scientific paper on coherent nanophotonic circuits in the journal Nature Photonics, now presents optical interconnect cards and a balance sheet with accumulated losses to the market, serving as a typical example of Chinese high-tech companies that rapidly create prototypes but take a long time to prove the value of their product to buyers.
Initially, Lightelligence aimed not just to create faster fibers, but a 'light brain' involved in computing processes. Having progressed from a prototype board in 2019 to the first version of PACE in 2021 and Xizhi Tianshu in 2025, the company has integrated photonic computing into a computing card, where Tianshu includes over 40,000 photonic devices. PACE is a hybrid optoelectronic nature: electronic chips handle data storage and control, while the optical chip performs dense matrix multiplication, which is the most intensive part of artificial intelligence computation.
The scientific publication in Nature in 2025 demonstrated a single cycle latency of 5 nanoseconds when solving the Ising problem, which is nearly 500 times faster than the A10 GPU. Nevertheless, this does not prove the replacement of GPUs: the optical field faces challenges in data storage, analog computations are susceptible to noise, and algorithms require adaptation. Therefore, the commercial focus is shifting: instead of competing with GPUs, light is first being used to solve the data overload problem between them.
In 2025, revenue from optical computing was only 22.09 million yuan, while optical interconnect reached 84.28 million, accounting for 79.2% of total income. In March 2026, jointly with Shanghai INESA, Biren Technology, and ZTE, a commercial 128-card optical 'Jumper' was launched, signaling entry into clusters of thousands of GPU cards. At this stage, the company has switched to light-based connection: optical interconnect does not have to challenge CUDA; preventing GPU downtime has obvious value.
However, this transition involves risks: optical computing, CXL interconnect, and distributed switching imply working with different clients and cycles, and spreading efforts across them could deplete the R&D resources of the young company. The real maturation of a high-tech firm is determined by cash flow. Although revenue grew from 38.24 million in 2023 to 60.19 million in 2025 and then to 106 million, the gross margin decreased from 60.7% to 39.0%. Concentration of the client base, slowing payment receipts, and falling margins indicate the need for an open interface, scaling, and a continuously functioning ecosystem to transform into a new infrastructure layer. Light excels at straight lines; the company needs to navigate cost curves, ecosystems, and cash flows. Lightelligence has launched its chip; now it needs to secure orders and accounts.