Revolutionizing AI Performance: Oriole Networks Raises £10 Million in Seed Funding
In a significant development, London-headquartered Oriole Networks, a startup that uses light to train Large Language Models (LLMs) a hundred times faster with only a fraction of power, has raised £10 million in seed funding. This is one of the largest seed funding rounds in the UK in recent years. The round was co-led by UCL Technology Fund, Clean Growth Fund, XTX Ventures, and Dorilton Ventures and was supported by Innovate UK Investor Partnership.
Oriole Networks’ novel approach to harness the power of light
Oriole Networks will use the investment to revolutionize AI performance and adoption and solve AI’s critical energy problem. Developed as a spinout from University College London in 2023 by UCL scientists, Professor George Zervas, Alessandro Ottino, and Joshua Benjamin, with seasoned CEO James Regan, Oriole Networks has developed a novel way of using light to connect thousands of AI chips. Once connected, the power of each graphics processing unit (GPU) is combined to form a super-brain. This super-brain can train advanced LLMs a hundred times faster, with a thousandth of the latency, while using a tiny fraction of energy.
“AI computational needs are increasing by 10 times every 18 months. This leads to distributed training and inference across large numbers of xPUs. Collective data movement across the servers in the data centre becomes a bottleneck which in turn limits the training and inference completion time. This requires a fundamental shift in the co-design of next-generation networked systems.” - George Zervas, CTO
Data centres play a critical role in the evolution and proliferation of SaaS and its shift towards AI
Oriole Network’s technology not only addresses rising concerns about the obscene energy demands of AI but also has the power to revolutionize time-critical tasks, such as algorithmic trading, increase AI adoption, and accelerate machine learning algorithmic progress in a low-carbon world. This will bring huge gains for all AI companies, particularly data centres. Data centres play a critical role in the evolution and proliferation of SaaS and its shift towards AI, yet are facing systemic problems and unsustainable power consumption due to increased demands. Oriole Networks will speed up data centres and dramatically reduce their energy consumption for a sustainable future.
A sustainable future for data centres
“As the demand for compute continues to increase, it is critical to find new solutions that can address these challenges in a sustainable and carbon-efficient manner. Our novel approach to harness the power of light has already demonstrated significant technical performance improvements, up to 100 times speed up in completion time and 40 times improvements in energy consumption.” - James Regan, CEO
The investment is a testament to the innovative approach of Oriole Networks and its potential to revolutionize the AI industry. With this funding, Oriole Networks is poised to make a significant impact on the AI landscape and contribute to a sustainable future.
