Kopin Corporation (NASDAQ: KOPN) announced a strategic collaboration with Fabric.AI (NASDAQ: SBLX) to develop MicroLED-based optical interconnect technology for artificial intelligence infrastructure. Fabric.AI placed a $15 million purchase order with Kopin to fund the demonstration chipset development.

The companies are jointly developing Neural I/o™ optical interconnect technology designed to replace traditional copper wiring between GPUs and high-performance processors in data centers. The technology leverages Kopin's MicroLED displays and bi-directional NeuralDisplay™ architecture, repurposing programmable MicroLED pixels as optical transceivers for data transmission.

Under the agreement, Kopin owns 19.9% of Fabric.AI and will serve as the exclusive manufacturer of the Neural I/o™ chipsets. The technology aims to reduce power consumption compared to existing copper-based solutions by using photons instead of electrons for data transfer.

"The marriage of our MicroLED technology with our bi-directional NeuralDisplay™ architecture is exactly what the industry needs to break through current interconnect bottlenecks," said Michael Murray, Chief Executive Officer of Kopin.

Josh Silverman, Chief Executive Officer of Fabric.AI, stated that "MicroLED-based interconnects are the leading edge in infrastructure for AI data centers. Kopin's bi-directional MicroLED technology is the foundation of our optical interconnect architecture."

Kopin develops display and optical solutions for defense, enterprise and consumer products, including microdisplays and head-mounted display systems. Fabric.AI develops semiconductor solutions for AI infrastructure applications.

The collaboration extends Kopin's MicroLED capabilities, originally developed for virtual and augmented reality applications, into AI infrastructure markets. The companies stated the technology is designed to enable GPU-to-GPU, board-to-board and rack-to-rack communications in data centers.