Neuberger Berman has led a $500m Series E investment in Ayar Labs, valuing the Nvidia-backed semiconductor company at $3.75bn.

The round brings Ayar Labs’ total funding to $870m and underscores continued private capital appetite for AI infrastructure plays.

New investors include ARK Invest, Qatar Investment Authority, and 1789 Capital.

Ayar Labs develops optical interconnect technology that uses light instead of electrical signals to transmit data between AI processors and memory chips. As hyperscalers and governments allocate hundreds of bn dollars towards AI infrastructure, demand for faster and more energy-efficient chip connectivity is intensifying.

“Today’s AI infrastructure buildout is one of the largest capital deployment opportunities of our generation, and data center interconnect has quickly emerged as the most critical bottleneck,” Gabe Cahill, Managing Director at Neuberger Berman, said in a statement.

The company plans to deploy the new capital to scale manufacturing and testing capacity, expand global operations, including its Hsinchu, Taiwan office, and accelerate rollout of its co-packaged optics solutions.

The $500m raise reflects sustained momentum across AI hardware funding, as venture and private equity investors continue backing enabling technologies positioned at the core of next-generation data centres.

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