Optalysys aims to compute as data travels, not just when it arrives

Optalysys has demonstrated photonic hardware capable of performing tens of GFLOPs of operations directly on data as it travels, a departure from conventional systems where data must first reach processing units, the company says. The company’s approach tackles a growing bottleneck in computing: data movement, which increasingly limits performance for demanding workloads like artificial intelligence and cryptography. This compute-in-transit model shifts the focus from simply moving data to applying computation as it propagates through the system.

Data Movement Bottlenecks in AI and Cryptography This compute-in-transit model addresses a critical limitation in current systems; data movement is increasingly the dominant bottleneck, particularly for demanding applications like artificial intelligence, Post-Quantum Cryptography, and Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Conventional architectures rely on transporting data to discrete processing units, creating inefficiencies in latency, bandwidth, and energy consumption as system scale increases. AI systems currently depend heavily on multiply-accumulate operations on floating-point data, a computationally intensive process; however, cryptographic workloads such as Fully Homomorphic Encryption utilize structured polynomial transformations, including Fast Fourier Transforms and Number Theoretic Transforms, as their computational foundation. Although differing in structure, both areas involve repeated application of regular operations over large datasets, making performance increasingly sensitive to data movement and memory access patterns. The creation and propagation of intermediate data further exacerbate this issue, requiring repeated storage, transfer, and transformation across processing stages.

Digital Signal Processing cores and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits accelerate common operations, but scaling to very large transform sizes, like the 65,536-point NTTs needed for certain Fully Homomorphic Encryption workloads, remains constrained by memory access and interconnect complexity. Optalysys states that their prototype uses a Photonic Integrated Circuit to apply computation directly along the data path during transmission, operating through a standard QSFP56 port. The prototype includes self-link fault detection and automated photonic calibration mechanisms, achieving sustained operation.

Photonic Integrated Circuits Enable Programmable Compute-in-Transit Current computer designs separate data transmission from processing, creating a performance bottleneck as workloads grow more demanding. A prototype photonic integrated circuit supports a range of mathematical operations through a programmable serial compute pipeline operating across high-speed transceiver lanes. This tighter integration between computation and data movement provides a foundation for architectures that more closely align computation with dataflow. Source: https://optalysys.com/resource/programmable-compute-in-transit-using-integrated-photonics/ Stay currentSee today’s quantum computing news on Quantum Zeitgeist for the latest breakthroughs in qubits, hardware, algorithms, and industry deals. Tags: Rusty Flint Rusty is a quantum science nerd. He's been into academic science all his life, but spent his formative years doing less academic things. Now he turns his attention to write about his passion, the quantum realm. He loves all things Quantum Physics especially. Rusty likes the more esoteric side of Quantum Computing and the Quantum world. Everything from Quantum Entanglement to Quantum Physics. Rusty thinks that we are in the 1950s quantum equivalent of the classical computing world. While other quantum journalists focus on IBM's latest chip or which startup just raised $50 million, Rusty's over here writing 3,000-word deep dives on whether quantum entanglement might explain why you sometimes think about someone right before they text you. (Spoiler: it doesn't, but the exploration is fascinating) Latest Posts by Rusty Flint: Umeå University researchers discuss quantum funding with minister August 21, 2026 NSF funds multi-university effort to study extreme light August 21, 2026 NSF researchers gain easier access to national supercomputers August 21, 2026