This is being posted/linked across multiple forums for an open and ongoing discussion, please feel free to contribute/comment/reply with questions, thoughts, evidence, and informed speculation regarding Celestial AI’s potential relationships and what fits, what does not. The goal is to better inform all of us on the relationship. 

First and foremost,

- CAI business is POET business. POET Starlight light source is a vital hardware component in every CAI Orion accelerator product, and is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for POET, according to Lisa Thompson, Senior Technology Analyst, Zacks Research.

The lack of follow through interest in the POET/Celestial AI connection is surprising, but understandable; there is very little information available on  CAI, but the significance of this relationship cannot be overstated. What do we know, what can we learn? 

A quick summary of CAI here:

https://www.celestial.ai/about

CAI has an  “A-list” of investors 

These companies/funds invested in the first $56 million financing:

Koch Disruptive Technologies Fund

Temasek’s Xora Innovation Fund

The Engine, the venture firm spun out of MIT

Tyche Partners

M-Ventures, Merck’s corporate venture fund 

IMEC’s X-Pand 

Fitz Gate, venture capital investor in the Princeton University ecosystem

Dig into them, they are top notch organizations. Common thread is their focus on disruptive technologies. 

Second round - $96 million,  unearthed in April

Private companies have virtually free rein in providing information to their investors. Consider the information CAI has provided to their investors that has motivated them to invest up to $152 million. 

The Technology

Celestial AI’s technology enables optically addressable memory and compute (within chip and chip-to-chip) that decouples their technology from the limitations of electronics and slowdown of Moore’s Law. Their proprietary hardware and software architecture enables elegant, low-complexity system software, allowing highly efficient mapping of data and compute without the need for complex optimizations.

CAI has emphasized cost and volume as key advantages. Starlight’s wafer scale manufacturing and 75% cost reduction versus competing solutions appear to provide huge competitive advantages. 

Under the Hood

The CAI software controls the race car, and while it is clearly the star, POET Starlight is integral to the power under the hood that pushes the data and enables the elegance of the software to shine through. 

Key Personnel

This a link to key personnel, not only to members of CAI’s team, but also to their many advisors. 

https://www.celestial.ai/team

Any relationships/associations with potential clients, other suppliers? Note Vivek Rajgharia, President, POET among them. 

A whale, a school of fish, or ?

Celestial AI’s mission is to fundamentally transform the way computing is done with their proprietary Photonic Fabric™ technology that uses light for data movement both within chip and between chips.

The size of the follow up financing seems to suggest that there is a major player on the other end of the line. 

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, or ???

Meta seems to be on a solo journey with the MTIA chip, but the processing element has a fabric interface, pictured in this article:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/meta-unveils-first-custom-artificial-intelligence-chip/

Google is following OpenAI and going dark. 

Amazon is working with Nvidia on generative AI infrastructure. 

Apple seems focused on application specificity in healthcare with the recent announcement of Quartz. 

Microsoft is software centric, but does CAI fill a role for them? 

Or are we looking in the wrong place? Could it be Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom, a world class chipmaker that has a major customer in waiting? Is the obvious possibility (the ever present Broadcom) the answer?

The Timing

While all things AI seem to be moving toward the speed of light, we know POET‘s Starlight solution for CAI is expected to finish qualification by end of this year, with production at the end of 2024. This seems comparable to, or faster than, the timing for many solutions of 2025-2026 and beyond. 

The bottom line remains, every processor that utilizes CAI’s accelerator technology will have POET Starlight inside, it must be produced in high volume, and their investors agree that POET has the answer. 

My CAI  forecast for POET -  7 digit revenues in 2023, 8 digit revenues in 2024, and 9 digit revenues in 2025. 

Questions 

The AI hardware market is disaggregated, dominant players yet to emerge. POET’s development of the highly scalable, low cost light source represents a huge market opportunity. Who else does it fit?

The light source market alone is worth billions of dollars, who benefits most from owning POET? 

Is Ayar Labs a competitor or a potential client?

How does CAI’s end game, (fabless, manufacturer, buy out, etc) affect POET? 

Is CAI driving their stealth mode, or their presumably huge client ? 

Does POET qualification of Starlight accelerate availability of light sources for other potential clients? 

Who else is involved or might be ? Broadcom, TSMC, others? Evidence or bread crumbs?

What technical/IP pathways between major players (suppliers to end users) seem to coincide?

Final comment: there are at least dozens of companies wanting a piece of the AI chip business. Most will need cost and power efficient light sources to compete. POET seems to have a leading edge solution.

Per Suresh Venkatesan, POET CEO, 

“At the end of the day, there are going to be many other ways where people can get to the end solution but we are clearly in the pole position in terms of having an integration capability that works in that space. Our desire and our vision is totally to capture that position to solidify our lead in that space in terms of providing integrated light source solutions for their AI market. So, it transforms us from being kind of a datacom company to more of an AI player, which is like a step function in terms of kind of potential revenue and potential volumes as well.” 

I will attempt to assimilate any productive input that increases our knowledge or provokes further thought/investigation. Feel free to share.