Q.ANT Unveils Second-Generation Photonic Processor for AI and High-Performance Computing

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. Q.ANT is offering its NPUs directly as a 19" Server Solution including x86 host processor and Linux operating system.

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. He emphasized that with their NPUs, performance and sustainability aren't opposing forces but are one and the same, representing not an evolution but a new beginning for computing.

The acceleration of AI has reached the physical limits of silicon, with each new generation of GPUs consuming more power and water while producing more heat. Cooling systems now account for up to 40 percent of total data-center energy consumption. Photonic processing fundamentally changes this equation as 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, where it will run a live image-based AI learning demo powered by the Q.ANT Photonic Algorithm Library on its photonic processors. 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, demonstrating real-world photonic acceleration within existing server architectures. Visitors can test how the NPU learns images within seconds using a nonlinear neural network, marking significant progress from simple digit recognition to image classification and learning within just one year.

Dr. Förtsch noted that photonic computing is scaling much faster than CMOS, achieving in one year what took ten years for digital computing. The second generation of their Native Processing Unit shows how rapidly this transition is happening and why efficient, light-based computation will drive the next wave of AI and HPC. The enhanced nonlinear processing core introduces 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, allowing visual AI to recognize defects, track objects, and optimize inventories with fewer parameters while dramatically reducing energy costs.

This technology makes 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, advancing domains such as drug discovery, materials design, and adaptive optimization where both nonlinear complexity and extreme energy efficiency are essential. 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.