Portfolio News: 2D Photonics subsidiary grant

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AIM: FIPP

15 April 2026

Frontier IP Group Plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

Portfolio News: 2D Photonics subsidiary granted €211 million in European Commission-approved state aid

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, notes the following announcement published today by portfolio company 2D Photonics Group S.p.A ("2DP" or the "Company") that the European Commission has approved €211 million in Italian State Aid for its wholly-owned subsidiary CamGraPhIC s.r.l.

It will be one of the largest single public investments ever made to an Italian deep-tech start up. Frontier IP holds a 9.1 per cent stake in the Company.

The grant funding will be used to accelerate development and scale up 2DP's advanced graphene photonics technology. This is designed to address one of the biggest problems hindering the progress of artificial intelligence and other advanced computing and communication applications by moving data much more quickly within systems. It offers higher bandwidth density, lower latency and significantly lower energy consumption than silicon photonics, and is therefore faster and cooler.

A key pillar of the project is the construction of a pilot manufacturing facility near Milan, designed to take graphene photonics from advanced research into real-world production.

2DP completed a €25 million Series A funding round in March 2025 supported by major governmental, industrial and financial institutions. Investors included the Nato Innovation Fund, the Sony Innovation Fund, Bosch Ventures, CDP Venture Capital, Join Capital and Indaco Ventures.

The Company was a joint spin out from a partnership between the University of Cambridge and Italian research institute CNIT.

Frontier IP Chief Executive Officer Neil Crabb said: "The fact that 2DP has managed to attract one of the largest ever public investments into an Italian technology company demonstrates the potential for the Company's technology to transform artificial intelligence and other advanced applications. I very much look forward to the next steps in the Company's development."

2D Photonics statement begins

2D Photonics Group company, CamGraPhIC Approved For €211 Million Grant to Fix One of AI's Biggest Problems: Increasing interconnect bandwidth whilst reducing power consumption

Milan, Italy - The 2D Photonics Group has been given approval by the European Commission for €211 million in funding by the Italian State to build a new class of optical technology designed to solve one of artificial intelligence's most pressing physical limits: how data moves inside advanced computing systems.

Today's AI systems are no longer held back by a lack of computing power. Instead, performance is increasingly constrained by the flow of data between chips, accelerators, and memory. As models grow larger and hardware becomes more dense, existing electrical and silicon photonic interconnects struggle to keep up, consuming more power, generating more heat, and slowing systems down.

CamGraPhIC, the wholly owned subsidiary and research arm of 2D Photonics, is tackling this problem head-on with graphene-based optical input/output (Optical I/O) technology that replaces existing slower, power-hungry, and high latency optical links.

By using graphene, a material with exceptional electronic and optical properties, the company's approach enables a large increase in bandwidth density, while delivering lower latency and significantly lower energy consumption compared to the best silicon photonics available today, directly addressing one of the biggest obstacles to scaling AI and high-performance computing.

 "This investment goes straight to the heart of what's limiting AI today," said Ben Jensen, CEO of 2D Photonics. "Compute keeps getting faster, but data movement hasn't kept pace. Graphene-based optical technology offers a way to move vastly more data using far less power, which is exactly what the next generation of AI systems will require."  

The €211 million Italian State aid measure, approved by the European Commission, will be one of the largest single public investments ever made in an Italian deep-tech startup and will place the company among a small group of companies globally working to redefine how data is moved inside future AI infrastructure. While the project strengthens Europe's semiconductor ecosystem, its relevance extends well beyond the region, targeting a challenge faced by AI systems worldwide.

The funding, under the European Commission's State Aid Framework for research and development and innovation, will be used to industrialise CamGraPhIC's optical interconnect platform for deployment in AI accelerators, high-performance computing systems, and advanced data centres, where bandwidth density and energy efficiency have become critical bottlenecks.

A key pillar of the project is the construction of a pilot manufacturing facility near Milan, designed to take graphene photonics from advanced research into real-world production. The facility will support device qualification, early manufacturing runs, and eventual transfer to high-volume foundry processes, creating a direct pathway from lab to large-scale deployment.

The project is expected to create over 150 highly skilled jobs across photonics engineering, materials science, and semiconductor manufacturing. The pilot line is scheduled to become operational in 2028 enabling early engagement with system integrators and computing platform providers.

"The measure approval allows us to move quickly from innovation to execution," Marco Romagnoli, Founder and CSO added. "By building manufacturing capability alongside the technology, we're laying the groundwork for graphene photonics to become a practical part of future AI systems, not just a research promise."  

CamGraPhIC's Optical I/O platform is designed for a future where optical communication must move closer to the processor itself to sustain AI performance gains. Rather than offering incremental improvements, the technology aims to reset the limits of bandwidth, power efficiency, and scalability inside next-generation compute architectures.

2D Photonics statement ends

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Frontier IP unites science and commerce by identifying strong intellectual property and accelerating its development through a range of commercialisation services. A critical part of the Group's work is involving relevant industry partners at an early stage of development to ensure technology meets real world demands and needs.

The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes and licence income by taking an active involvement in spin-out companies, including support for fund raising and collaboration with relevant industry partners at an early stage of development.