Google is betting heavily on Celero Communications’ ability to speed up the data flowing through the ever-increasing number of data centers.
Celero, led by former executives from Broadcom, Marvell and Inphi, said last month it received $100 million in Series B funds from CapitalG, the independent venture arm of Google parent Alphabet.
That comes on top of the $40 million that it already received from backers including high-tech-focused Sutter Hill Ventures of Silicon Valley.
Data centers and AI infrastructure are among the fastest-growing areas of computing right now.
Celero Communications is developing a chip to help connect data centers across vast distances.
The company is headquartered in Irvine, with design centers in Canada and Argentina.
To keep up with the demand forever-increasing AI speed and capacity, Celero is building advanced chips that convert light sent over fiber-optic cables into electrical signals, helping speed up links between distant facilities.
Celero’s “digital signal processor” (DSP) solutions will enable high-bandwidth, low-power optical connectivity for AI infrastructure, eliminating data bottlenecks in long-distance fiber-optic transmission.
Long-Distance Connections
Long-distance connections between data centers have become an area of renewed investment in the chip industry.
“As AI models and clusters grow exponentially, today’s data centers face severe limits in bandwidth, cost, and energy efficiency. Our coherent DSP technology delivers the optical performance and scalability needed to remove these bottlenecks, establishing the foundation for large-scale, accelerated computing networks,” said Nariman Yousefi, co-founder and CEO of Celero.
Yousefi held executive posts at networking leaders Inphi (Nasdaq: IPHI), Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) and ClariPhy and was a founding member of chip design behemoth Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), according to the Celero website.
Celero co-founder and CTO Oscar Agazzi held executive positions at the same companies, with a stint at Bell Labs as well, the website adds.
Soaring AI Demands
“Amid the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, Celero is uniquely positioned to meet the soaring demands of AI infrastructure,” said James Luo, general partner at CapitalG and member of the Celero board of directors.
“Celero’s coherent DSP innovation directly addresses one of the most pressing challenges in AI infrastructure: efficient, scalable optical connectivity,” said Stefan Dyckerhoff, managing director at Sutter Hill Ventures and also a Celero board member.
Founded in 2024, Celero combines deep expertise in analog design, digital signal processing and system architecture to redefine how data centers connect and scale across large AI networks.
AI systems require enormous data transfers across data center networks.
Current optical connectivity approaches struggle with power consumption, cost efficiency and bandwidth capacity as AI clusters grow.
