Q.ANT Launches Next-Generation Photonic Processor with Breakthrough Energy Efficiency

Q.ANT announced the availability of its next-generation Native Processing Unit: The Q.ANT NPU 2, with enhanced nonlinear processing capabilities to deliver orders-of-magnitude gains in energy efficiency and performance for AI and high-performance workloads. By performing nonlinear mathematics natively in light, the Q.ANT NPU 2 enables entirely new classes of AI and scientific applications including physical AI and advanced robotics, next-generation computer vision and industrial intelligence and physics-based simulation and scientific discovery.

Dr. Michael Förtsch, CEO of Q.ANT, stated that the company offers the industry a new class of processors that enable performance gains beyond the incremental improvements of their digital counterparts, opening the door for superior algorithms that digital circuits cannot reach. For years, AI has raced ahead of our ability to power it — energy became the new frontier. With our NPUs, we've changed the equation. Our NPU 2 proves that performance and sustainability aren't opposing forces. They're one and the same.

AI's acceleration has reached the physical limits of silicon. Each new generation of GPUs consumes more power and water and produces more heat, with cooling systems accounting for up to 40 percent of total data-center energy. Photonic processing fundamentally changes this equation. Light travels faster, generates almost no heat, and can execute complex functions in a single optical step that would require thousands of transistors in a CMOS chip. By replacing transistor logic with native analog computation in light, Q.ANT's architecture delivers up to 30x lower energy use and 50x higher performance for complex AI and HPC workloads.

Q.ANT will debut its second-generation Native Processing Unit at Supercomputing 2025 in St. Louis. At the LRZ booth #535, it will run a live image-based AI learning demo powered by the Q.ANT Photonic Algorithm Library on its photonic processors. Q.PAL offers developers efficient, nonlinear algorithms and functions for complex workloads being continuously enhanced and optimized by Q.ANT for application-oriented photonic processing. The demo will show how Q.ANT's photonic processors achieve more accurate results with fewer parameters and less operations compared to conventional CPU-based systems.

Visitors can test how the NPU learns images within seconds using a nonlinear neural network. This marks a significant advance: within just one year, Q.ANT has progressed from simple digit recognition to image classification and image learning. Dr. Michael Förtsch emphasized that photonic computing is scaling much faster than CMOS, noting that what took ten years for digital computing, they've just achieved in one year with photonics.

The second generation NPU introduces enhanced analog units optimized for nonlinear network models that dramatically reduce parameter counts and training depth while improving accuracy for image learning, classification, and physics simulation. Delivered as a turnkey 19-inch rack-mountable server, the Native Processing Server NPS contains multiple NPUs Gen 2 and integrates seamlessly with existing CPUs and GPUs via PCIe and C/C++/Python APIs making photonic acceleration immediately deployable in HPC and data-center environments.

In practical settings like manufacturing, logistics, and inspection, photonic processors can execute nonlinear neural networks far more efficiently. This allows visual AI to recognize defects, track objects, and optimize inventories with fewer parameters, dramatically reducing energy costs and making computer vision systems economically viable, even for tasks previously considered too compute-intensive to run. Photonic processors will accelerate the next generation of AI architectures, including hybrid models that combine statistical reasoning with physical modelling. This will advance domains such as drug discovery, materials design, and adaptive optimization, where both nonlinear complexity and extreme energy efficiency are essential.

The Q.ANT servers equipped with the latest processor generation NPU 2 processors are available to order now, with customer shipments in the first half of 2026. Each system ships as a turnkey, data-center-ready server that integrates seamlessly into existing HPC infrastructures. More information about the company's photonic computing solutions can be found at https://www.qant.com.