Ephos Fact Finding

Ephos is building the essential infrastructure for the future of computing. We design and manufacture glass-based integrated photonic circuits that power the most advanced classical and quantum devices.

https://www.ephos.io

CEO : Andrea Rocchetto

In July 2025, Ephos secured a €41.5M grant from Italy (under the EU Chips Act) to build a second manufacturing facility.

The total investment for this new facility (“Fab-2”) is €104.9 M.

This facility will be the world’s first dedicated to processing advanced optical materials on glass for photonic chips.

The European Commission approved the state aid, highlighting the project's importance for EU technological sovereignty.

Time 100 Climate 2025

WSJ. Glass Chips Offer Hope of Cleaner Future for Quantum Computing

A recent (May 2025) preprint describes a 24-mode universal photonic processor built on glass using femtosecond laser writing. arXiv

This processor has very low insertion losses (~4.35 dB). arXiv

It’s a programmable (“universal”) photonic chip, which is significant for quantum / multi-photon experiments. arXiv

These technical advances support Ephos’s positioning: their manufacturing process (laser writing in glass) is not just theoretical — it's being pushed to more complex, scalable devices.

If Ephos succeeds, its glass photonic chips could become a critical component in next-generation computing infrastructure (quantum + AI).

Their work aligns with EU strategic goals (e.g., under the Chips Act) to bolster sovereignty in advanced tech.

It’s a bet on photonics, which many see as a key technology for future telecom, data, and quantum systems — particularly as electronic (silicon) interconnects face physical and energy limits.

Manufacturing Complexity: Glass photonic manufacturing is less mature than silicon-based semiconductor manufacturing — scaling up could be difficult.

Adoption Risk: Convincing large-scale data centers or quantum companies to switch to glass photonic chips might require a lot of validation.

Capital Intensity: Building fabs (even specialized ones) is expensive; they’ll likely need more funding as they scale.

Competition: Other photonics and quantum companies (especially those using silicon photonics) could push back.

Funding Strategy : no public info as yet

• Non-standard manufacturing flow vs silicon photonics → fewer ecosystem tools, higher scale risk.
• Early-stage capital base compared to major competitors.
• Device density typically lower than silicon-based photonic platforms.

QuiX Quantum — builds low-loss, reconfigurable photonic processors for quantum computing and explicitly positions its systems for deployment in data-center / HPC environments (photonic QPUs / processors).

LIGENTEC — Si₃N₄ (silicon-nitride) PIC foundry focused on ultra-low-loss chips for both quantum technologies and classical markets (AI, communications, LiDAR, sensors). That same “low-loss” value proposition is directly comparable to Ephos’s glass-based emphasis on photon fidelity.

LioniX International / TriPleX — provider of low-loss dielectric photonic platforms and modules (TriPleX / SiN variants) used in telecom/datacom and quantum photonics projects — a manufacturing/foundry partner type that overlaps Ephos’s market.

PsiQuantum — a large photonic-quantum company using integrated-photonics (silicon photonics) to build scalable quantum computers; they explicitly re-use telecom/datacenter photonics know-how — similar target end-markets on the quantum side.

Infinera (now integrated into larger optical groups) — long-time maker of large-scale PICs for high-performance telecom/datacom — overlaps Ephos on the classical/datacenter/telecom PIC market (though Infinera’s focus is telecom-scale coherent systems).

Ayar Labs — focused on optical I/O / co-packaged optics for AI/datacenter scale-up (classical side). Not a quantum vendor, but overlaps with Ephos’s aim at AI/datacenter photonic infrastructure.

(Below our guess based on recent quantum-photonic market estimates as the primary addressable market for Ephos’s core product (quantum PICs), and a separate larger classical PIC market for any classical/telecom/datacenter revenue.)

Base: Ephos successfully supplies research labs, early commercial users, and some foundry/fab customers — steady growth to tens of millions by 2030. Requires product reliability, a few recurring customers, and scale-up of the Milan facility.

Optimistic: Ephos wins larger commercial contracts (e.g., with quantum system integrators or cloud providers), scales manufacturing quickly using the Chips Act grant, and captures a meaningful niche of quantum PIC demand plus some classical PIC customers — leading to hundreds of millions by 2030.

Not yet received