AI data centers produce tokens through hundreds of computing operations, yet most systems still ask the same general-purpose processor to handle every stage.
London-based OLIX has raised a $312 million Series B at a $3.3 billion valuation, two years after the company was founded. The financing included Fundomo, Arm and Hudson River Trading, alongside angel investors including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.
Existing investors Hummingbird Ventures, Crane Venture Partners, Plural, Creandum, Phoenix Court and Transition all increased their commitments.
Founded by James Dacombe, OLIX is developing a complete rack-scale platform for AI inference. Its core argument is that token generation should operate more like an industrial production line, with specialized processors handling different stages of the workload.
Within OLIX’s X-1 platform, models are distributed across many chips. Each chip focuses on a specific section of the model while retaining a flexible compute architecture that can adapt as AI models change.
The first processor, DX-1, is designed for the decode stage, when a model reasons and generates its response. OLIX says the chip can deliver more than 10,000 tokens per second per user on models with around 100 billion parameters while improving output throughput per watt. These performance figures remain company-reported until customer deployments begin.
DX-1 stores the model in fast on-chip SRAM and avoids both high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging-two components facing significant supply constraints. The architecture is designed to scale beyond individual racks and support models reaching trillions of parameters.
OLIX also uses a proprietary “slow and wide” optical interconnect, moving data directly between chips using light instead of copper. A deterministic compiler schedules workloads across the racks, allowing the networking, processors and software to operate as one system.
The funding will support manufacturing and supply-chain commitments, development of the wider custom-silicon platform and delivery of the first DX-1 racks to customers in the second half of 2027. OLIX is recruiting across silicon, photonics, compiler and systems engineering in London, Bristol, Austin, Toronto and San Francisco.
The company has also appointed Professor Nick McKeown to its board. McKeown co-invented software-defined networking, OpenFlow and P4, and previously co-founded Nicira and Barefoot Networks. Former Wise finance chief Matt Briers has joined OLIX as CFO, bringing experience taking a major technology company from private ownership to the public markets.
OLIX now has the capital and leadership to move beyond architecture claims. Its next test is delivering reliable racks at commercial scale while proving that specialized inference can materially reduce the cost of producing AI tokens.
