nEye Systems, an optical switch startup spun out of the University of California, Berkeley, has completed a $58 million series B round. The funding, led by Alphabet’s independent growth fund CapitalG, with participation from Microsoft venture fund M12, Micron Ventures, NVIDIA, and Socratic Partners, brings the company’s total funding to $72.5 million. Formed in 2020, nEye has developed a high radix silicon photonic switch with ultra-low power consumption, leveraging more than a decade of research from professor Ming Wu’s lab at UC Berkeley. Compared to existing optical switch solutions, the company said, the technology is 100 times smaller and has 1000 times lower power consumption, while boasting 10,000 times greater speeds at 10 times lower cost. The technology addresses AI infrastructure by opening data center communication bottlenecks that have hindered high-performance computing, AI, and machine learning systems. According to nEye, its wafer-scale optical circuit switch uses direct optical connections that offer virtually unlimited bandwidth to provide a more efficient and cost-effective solution. nEye previously secured an unannounced series A round led by TEDA Holdings with support from Innolight Technology USA, and additional seed funds.