Akhetonics is a Berlin-based deep-tech semiconductor startup founded in 2021 that is building the world's first all-optical, general-purpose digital processor — branded as the RPU (Reasoning Processing Unit). The core technology uses photons instead of electrons to process, store, and transmit data entirely in the optical domain, eliminating electronic signal conversion to achieve THz-class clock speeds and up to 60x lower energy consumption than conventional electronic chips. The company's photonic integrated circuits (PICs) leverage proprietary nonlinear optical components to implement logic gates, analog math operations, optical memory, and quantum feed-forward on a single cross-domain platform.

Akhetonics' cross-domain XPU architecture goes beyond the von Neumann model by combining digital, analog, and quantum optical compute modes in one device. The system features optical volatile and non-volatile memory, a dynamic systolic array of reconfigurable functional units, and an all-optical data interface, meaning data never touches the electronic domain throughout the compute pipeline. The low power and heat output make the processor deployable at the edge and in harsh or unconventional environments, including aviation and defense applications.

The company is targeting pilot customers in aviation, defense, networking, AI inference, and operations research. It has demonstrated the world's first all-optical 2-bit CPU and is aiming for a full hardware prototype by 2026. Akhetonics builds on a sovereign European supply chain from fabrication to packaging, and is collaborating with Fraunhofer IZM on the SPOC project to develop scalable packaging for all-optical quantum computing. The company has raised approximately €8.8M in total funding from investors including Matterwave Ventures, 468 Capital, Bayern Kapital, Runa Capital, Rheingau Founders, Interface Capital, and Constructor Capital.