ISRAEL, November 6, 2026 – Building a radical alternative to silicon microchips isn’t for the faint of heart. But when government tech evaluators approve an R&D grant after assessing a project’s technical feasibility and commercial potential, it definitely gives an engineering team room to breathe.
At least that’s the case with LightSolver Ltd. The deep tech startup, headquartered in Rehovot and a subsidiary of Nasdaq-traded CollPlant Biotechnologies changing into OptiPhi Computing, has just won about $1.8 million grant from the Israeli Innovation Authority.
The new money targets a clear obstacle: taking their proprietary Laser Processing Unit (LPU) from impressive laboratory demonstrations into real-world commercial data centers.
So, why are state evaluators backing laser-based computing over traditional chips?
Regular silicon microprocessors face problems due to complex mathematical computations. As far as efforts are made to solve partial differential equations, which make up the heavy mathematical basis behind spaceflight simulation, financial modeling, and flow dynamics, silicon-based systems suffer from extreme memory limitations. According to LightSolver, their approach through optics is meant to lower data transfer and increase energy efficiency in specific computing problems. Coupled lasers instead of regular silicon circuits are built into a full-fledged optical engine to eliminate bottlenecks.
“We believe the Israel Innovation Authority’s support is a strong vote of confidence in the LPU,” explained Dr. Ruti Ben Shlomi, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LightSolver. She explained that the funding was meant to support the exact work needed to move from a validated platform to the development of commercial systems, high performance computing environment integration, and further stages of manufacturing.
As stated in official market releases, the new funding serves three main purposes. First, developing next-generation hardware designed to calculate partial differential equations. Second, extending the software toolbox at their cloud-based LPU Lab platform to enable external scientists to execute independent calculations. And third, optimizing hardware controls to improve scalability.
This funding comes at a very hectic period in the team of the company. In the past few months, LightSolver was able to create a partnership in engineering simulations with Boeing, get paid collaboration from the defense industry, and publish pioneering benchmarks in collaboration with High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart in Germany.
There is always an issue with translating novel optical physics into commercially viable hardware. Proof of concept is still under development, supply chain lags behind, and optical boxes sitting next to regular server racks may not be easy. But with governmental support and a solid IP portfolio, LightSolver is directly heading towards the hardware market.
