Microcomb's fingernail-sized chip.
Innovation Victoria Invests in Microcomb to Tackle AI’s Growing Energy Demands
Innovation Victoria is backing a new Swinburne University of Technology spinout developing photonic chip technology that could help data centres move more information while using less energy.
30 October 2026 | Following pre-seed investment from Innovation Victoria, Microcomb, a Melbourne-based deep tech company, has officially launched out of stealth mode. The company is developing a new type of microchip for data centres that uses optical microcomb technology, which can significantly increase the efficiency of data centre racks and reduce their energy usage.
Microcomb’s technology uses a fingernail-sized photonic chip that takes a single laser colour and generates multiple wavelengths of light. These can act as separate channels for transmitting data, effectively turning a single pathway into a multi-lane data highway.
The approach has the potential to reduce the number of individual lasers required for optical transmission while increasing the amount of information that can be carried through fibre. Its small footprint could also enable the technology to be easily integrated into data centre infrastructure, without requiring large components or major upgrades.
Turning breakthrough research into commercial opportunity
Innovation Victoria is supporting Microcomb through its University Innovation Platform (UIP), providing early-stage investment to help the team commercialise its technology. The investment reflects the UIP’s role in helping promising university-connected technologies progress along the research-to-market pathway, connecting research expertise with the investment and commercial capability needed to build new Victorian companies.
For Microcomb, that pathway is now moving from R&D towards demonstrating its potential in real-world applications. With pre-seed financing secured, Microcomb has begun developing a customer-informed demonstrator and is engaging prospective customers and partners across the AI infrastructure and photonic communications sectors.
As Microcomb develops its demonstrator and works with prospective customers, the company is taking the next step in translating advanced Victorian research into technology with potential applications in the rapidly growing global AI infrastructure and photonic communications markets.
What they said
Victoria’s universities produce world-class research, but turning those breakthroughs into companies with global potential requires the right combination of capital and commercialisation support at the right time. ”
Innovation Victoria CEO Rod BristowMicrocomb is a great example of why we created the University Innovation Platform: to back exciting early-stage Victorian technologies that have the potential for outsized impact – in this case, on the growing challenge of managing AI’s voracious appetite for energy – and help them make the leap from the lab to the market. ”
Co-Founder of Microcomb and Director of the Swinburne Optical Sciences Professor David MossAI data centres rely on many servers working together as one large computer, which means they need vastly more connections, fibre optics and data movement. All of that requires power. The energy required to support this growth is the huge bottleneck we’re up against. We’re reaching a crisis point, and we have to solve it from multiple angles because simply throwing more money and energy at the problem won’t work. ”
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