Kanata-based firm Ranovus has received $36 million in federal funding to advance Canada’s semiconductor industry.
Described as a trailblazer in the semiconductor industry, Ranovus builds fibre-optic technology that makes computer chips faster and more energy-efficient.
The company was founded in 2012 by a team of industry veterans including Waterloo Engineering alumnus Hamid Arabzadeh (BASc ‘88, electrical and computer engineering). Its technology targets data centres’ internal communication networks and offers significant power and cost savings compared to existing technology.
The funding from the Strategic Innovation Fund will go towards ramping up Ranovus’s domestic production to meet the increasing need for data centres to handle more complex artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. To achieve this, the company plans to expand its manufacturing facilities in Canada and grow its headcount to more than 200 full-time employees and 150 co-op students.
“We are investing $100 million to further scale our next-generation AI interconnect platform and are delighted by the continued support of the Strategic Innovation Fund to help keep Canada at the leading edge of the next generation of AI native infrastructure,” said Arabzadeh, the company’s CEO, in an article.