Optalysys, a company looking to harness light to transfer data securely and at high speeds, has appointed former Arm CTO Dipesh Patel as chair of its board.
The Leeds business, backed by the Lingotto Investment Management LLP, imec.xpand, & Northern Gritstone, secured partnerships this year with Google HEIR, Duality Technologies and Zama.
Its silicon photonics technology uses light, rather than electrical signals, to transmit data – much like fiber optics in high-speed internet, but integrated directly into computer chips.
With over 25 years in the semiconductor industry and the majority of his career at Cambridge technology giant Arm, Patel brings extensive experience in scaling transformative technologies.
He served as a member of Arm’s executive committee from 2013 until 2022, with his most recent role as the chief technology officer, leading the research and digital IT functions.
Prior to this, he was president of the IoT services group, where he spearheaded the creation of a new software and services business to capitalise on the growing IoT market.
“It is a great privilege to welcome Dipesh Patel as chair of the board,” said Dr Nick New, CEO of Optalysys. “Dipesh has many years of experience at Arm that will be invaluable to Optalysys as we progress to the next level of our development towards enabling a world of secure AI.”
Patel said: “It’s an exciting time to be joining Optalysys. Nick and the team’s groundbreaking work in accelerating FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) computation using silicon photonics will be key in building the future of secure AI.
“I look forward to working with the team to scale its solutions to enable organisations to leverage their data securely and effectively.”