AMD has acquired Enosemi, a Silicon Valley-based startup specializing in custom materials and photonic integrated circuits for silicon photonics. The financial terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.
The acquisition marks a strategic move by AMD to strengthen its position in high-speed data communication technologies — particularly as artificial intelligence workloads demand faster, more efficient ways to move data between compute and memory systems.
Why Silicon Photonics Matters for AI
Silicon photonics technology uses light instead of electricity to transmit data, dramatically increasing speed and reducing power consumption. This is especially critical as AI models scale in size and complexity, requiring faster communication between chips and system components.
“Enosemi has collaborated with us as an external development partner on photonics, and this acquisition extends that successful relationship,” said Brian Amick, SVP of Technology and Engineering at AMD, in a blog post. “Now, as part of AMD, the team will help us immediately scale our ability to support and develop a variety of photonics and co-packaged optics solutions across next-gen AI systems.”
AMD stated the deal will help advance its co-packaged optics innovation, referring to the integration of optical I/O directly into processors and accelerators — a technology that reduces latency and increases bandwidth in data-intensive environments like AI data centers.
Enosemi: A Photonics Startup with Deep Technical Roots
Founded in 2023 by semiconductor engineers Ari Novack and Matthew Streshinsky, Enosemi develops and ships photonic integrated circuits (PICs) — chips that integrate multiple photonic components such as modulators and detectors on a single substrate. These components enable optical interconnects that bring together compute and networking within data centers.
Despite being a young company, Enosemi made early traction. Before the acquisition, it raised $150,000 in venture funding from New Mexico Vintage Fund and employed 16 people as of May 2025, according to PitchBook. Novack now lists his title as Silicon Design Engineering Fellow at AMD on LinkedIn.
Enosemi is AMD’s first acquisition following its massive $4.9 billion purchase of ZT Systems. Earlier this month, AMD announced the sale of ZT’s server-manufacturing business for $3 billion, signaling a sharpened focus on core AI infrastructure.
The Enosemi deal also fits into AMD’s broader AI expansion. In 2024, AMD’s AI chip revenue surged to $5 billion, and CEO Lisa Su has made it clear that the company plans to grow that number aggressively through both internal R&D and strategic acquisitions.
As photonics becomes essential to enabling future-generation AI systems, this move signals that AMD is betting big on integrated, light-speed communication at the chip level — and it wants to build it in-house.
