Dai Nippon Printing Plans for First Overseas Research R&D Center: Week in Brief: 7/18/25

TOKYO, July 18, 2025 — Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) will open its first overseas R&D center in the Netherlands' High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE). The company said it expects the center, which will focus on the development of co-packaged optics technologies, to be operational by September. The announcement follows DNP's signing of an agreement earlier this month with the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) on joint R&D into co-packaged optics. These activities will be promoted in conjunction with the Photonic Integration Technology Centre, a research organization located on the campus that connects basic research to the mass production of photonic chips.

BIRMINGHAM, England — University of Birmingham professor Yeshpal Singh is leading a team that has been awarded funding to support a newly establish doctoral network, named QuRIOUS, which will train and develop 15 doctoral students on optical clocks and their applications. Funded by the European Commission, the University of Amsterdam will coordinate the program. It will involve 11 academic and industrial partners throughout Europe, as well as 11 additional associated partners. Industrial partners include Menlo Systems, NKT Photonics, and QUBIG.

SEOUL, South Korea — Lidar developer SolidVue entered into a partnership with Lumotive to unite SolidVue's direct time-of-flight single-photon avalanche diode (dTOF SPAD) array receiver with Lumotive’s beamforming technology. The companies will develop a system, using Lumotive's light control metasurface beamforming chip, that aims to support applications across a wide range of industries.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The state of New York extended its partnership with the University of Rochester’s Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences (CEIS) for an additional 10 years. CEIS is one of 15 New York Centers for Advanced Technology designated by the Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation of Empire State Development. The renewed designation comes with $1 million in annual state funding, which CEIS uses to support industry-sponsored research in optics, photonics, and imaging. In the last decade, CEIS has helped create more than 270 jobs and generate more than $537 million in economic impact. The center uses its funding to provide matching grants to university researchers — at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology — working on projects sponsored by private industry partners.

DANBURY, Conn. — The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency awarded Danbury Mission Technologies a $95 million, five-year contract for its AVR/2B laser detection system. The customer is to be the U.S. Army.

NESS ZIONA, ISRAEL — Lumus, a developer of waveguide technology for augmented reality (AR) eyewear, announced an expanded partnership with Quanta Computer Inc. The collaboration, Lumus said, strengthens its' supply chain infrastructure. As part of the expansion, Quanta has invested in dedicated production lines tailored to Lumus' waveguide technology and transitioned to an automated manufacturing approach. To date, more than 55,000 Lumus waveguides have been shipped to customers, with the vast majority produced by global partners, such as Quanta, over the past five years, Lumus said.

Meadowlark Optics - Spatial Light Modulator MR 2025

COPENHAGEN, Denmark —The Denmark export and investment fund, EIFO, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, are investing €80 million (~$93.2 million) on a joint venture to create a company, QuNorth, which will house the quantum computer "Magne." Magne will be delivered by a partnership between Microsoft and Atom Computing. Microsoft will equip Magne with specialized quantum software. Atom Computing, with its European headquarters in Denmark, will contribute its neutral atom technology to the initiative. Magne will be 100% Danish-owned, with EIFO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation each investing ~€40 million in the establishment of QuNorth. A search for QuNorth's CEO, who will lead an organization of around 10 employees, is ongoing.

BOULDER, Colo. — Bifrost Electronics, a quantum startup, raised $2.5 million in seed funding to accelerate development of its next-generation quantum amplifiers. Bifrost has developed a class of magnetically insensitive, scalable, electro-optic quantum amplifiers, aiming to advance upon traditional quantum readout devices that are complex, difficult to use, and failure-prone. The company is currently collaborating with companies including Form Factor, Rigetti Computing, and Maybell Quantum Industries to tailor systems for commercial deployments. The funding round will support team expansion, scaled manufacturing, and continued partnerships with key ecosystem stakeholders, Bitfrost said.

DRHAM, N.C. — Cree LED filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against NanoLumens, Inc. The lawsuit asserts that NanoLumens has infringed Cree LED’s rights in six issued patents by selling certain display products.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Aeva announced an expanded partnership with Daimler Truck North America to advance the commercialization of autonomous vehicles through enhanced production of Aeva’s 4D LiDAR technology. As part of the strengthened collaboration, Daimler Truck North America is providing additional, non-recurring funding to further support Aeva’s development as the company advances to series production. Aeva plans to increase its production capacity to up to 200,000 LiDAR units annually, with the goal of supporting multiple customers including Daimler Truck for production of advanced sensing in autonomous vehicle applications. The expanded partnership builds on the selection of Aeva as the production lidar supplier for Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck AG.

About Menlo Systems GmbH

About NKT Photonics A/S

About Aeva

About Lumotive LLC

About Cree LED Inc.