TL;DRUK startup Oriole Networks is deploying the world’s first pure photonic AI network at scale, claiming 81% core power reduction and sub-1% GPU idle time. The system pairs with AMD hardware inside the UK’s £50m ARIA Scaling Inference Lab.
For decades, the networks inside data centres have run on electrical switches. They are power-hungry, generate enormous heat, and are increasingly the bottleneck that limits how fast AI systems can process and exchange data. Oriole Networks, a UK startup, says it has a fix: replace every electrical switch in the core network with nanosecond-scale optical circuits that route data as photons instead of electrons.
On Monday, Oriole announced that it will deploy what it describes as the world’s first large-scale AI system powered by a pure photonic network, as part of the UK’s ARIA Scaling Inference Lab. The system pairs Oriole’s PRISM networking platform with AMD Instinct GPUs and AMD EPYC CPUs. It marks the company’s first commercial deployment, with wider industry rollout planned for 2027.
What PRISM does
PRISM eliminates electronic packet switches entirely from the network core. In a conventional data centre, electrical switches sit between GPUs and introduce latency, consume power, and generate heat. Oriole replaces them with optical circuit switching at nanosecond speeds, allowing photons to travel directly from chip to chip.
