Olix

Olix is a London chip company betting that AI inference should not depend on high-bandwidth memory. Its DX-1 design pairs photonic interconnects with on-chip SRAM to move data optically instead, and it claims more than 10,000 tokens per second per user on 100-billion-parameter models. Founded in March 2024 by James Dacombe, then 24 and a Thiel Fellow, it raised a $312m Series B at a $3.3bn valuation in August 2026 - the largest semiconductor venture round ever raised by a European company - with Arm, Hudson River Trading and the UK government's sovereign AI fund joining existing backers. Tape-out is expected in 2026 and first deliveries in the second half of 2027.