The Spark: Alternative to Nvidia? Technology Prize for Photonics Chips

Munich. A dominant provider, hardly any alternatives: Anyone who operates data centers for artificial intelligence is dependent on Nvidia. The Stuttgart start-up Q.ant wants to break this market dominance - with a new chip that can calculate faster and at the same time more efficiently than competing products.

After years of development, the product has been available for a few weeks and production has begun on a pilot line in Stuttgart. For this development, the founding team around Michael Förtsch won the German start-up prize “The Spark” from the Handelsblatt and the business consultancy McKinsey on Thursday.

As a spin-off from the laser specialist Trumpf, Q.ant is developing a so-called photonic processor that calculates with light instead of electricity. The process is intended to reduce energy requirements, which are particularly enormous in data centers for artificial intelligence (AI). The technology can address “one of the biggest problems” for AI in Europe, said McKinsey Germany boss Andreas Venus, explaining the jury’s decision.

Second winner was Proxima Fusion. The start-up from Munich wants to build a power plant for fusion energy. After a financing round of 130 million euros in the summer of 2025, the team led by co-founder Francesco Sciortino is working on a new type of super magnet - this is considered a central element for the reactor, which will one day reliably deliver emission-free energy.