CoreOpto raises 100M yuan angel round from Qiming for AI optical interconnects
What's the deal? Chinese optical interconnection startup CoreOpto (Shanghai CoreOpto Intelligent Technology) has raised a 100 million yuan (about $14.9 million) angel round, with Qiming Venture Partners as the sole investor. The funds will go toward core technology R&D, product iteration, and team building.
What's the endgame? CoreOpto develops optical interconnection and silicon photonics technologies for AI computing clusters. It aims to supply core optical products and full-stack solutions to global AI clusters, following a three-stage path it describes as "NPO entry, CPO mainstream, OIO layout."
Why now? Founded in May 2026, the company quickly closed a seed round in the tens of millions of yuan before this raise. Its first NPO optical engine has begun technical verification with domestic GPU makers and data center customers.
Who's behind it? CoreOpto was founded by experts in silicon photonics and optical interconnection, with team leads holding more than 15 years of industry experience. It is participating in setting industry standards such as ODCC and CPX MSA.
Founder and chief executive officer Dong Po called the round "full recognition of the team's technical accumulation and the development prospects of the track." Zhou Zhifeng, managing partner at Qiming Venture Partners, said high-speed optical interconnection has become "the core rigid demand for the upgrading of the computing power industry."
The signal: As AI computing clusters scale up, demand for faster, more integrated optical interconnects is rising. A 100 million yuan angel round from a single lead investor signals confidence in a hardware layer that could become critical to the next generation of data centers.
Read more: eu.36kr.com
Image credit: IBM Research
