Every major AI training operation is quietly running into the same wall: the speed at which silicon can move data between chips. Every new GPU cluster a hyperscaler adds makes the problem more expensive.

In this episode of We Built It Because We Had To, host Jonathan W. Buckley is joined by Vivek Raghunathan of Xscape Photonics — the deep-tech company spun out of Columbia University research to attack the bandwidth bottleneck at GPU-to-GPU and GPU-to-memory interfaces inside AI data centers. Xscape's core platform is a scalable multi-color laser system: custom silicon photonics built for hyperscale data centers and AI infrastructure operators.

This is not a software company with a slick demo. It's a materials and systems company making a long, capital-heavy bet — and the conversation digs into what that takes: the moment Columbia research stopped being research and started feeling like a company that had to exist, what the skeptics got wrong about the market, what broke first in the university spin-out chaos and how it got fixed, and how a hardware team holds together when timelines slip. Vivek is candid about the growth challenge in front of him now: finding product-market fit and expanding into new segments.

Every episode on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and more: https://www.WeBuiltItBecauseWeHadTo.com

Xscape Photonics: https://www.xscapephotonics.com

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