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RNS Number : 5555A  Frontier IP Group plc  15 April 2026

RNS 5555A

AIM: FIPP

15 April 2026

 

Frontier IP Group Plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

 

 

Portfolio News: 2D Photonics subsidiary granted €211 million in European
Commission-approved state aid

 

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, notes the
following announcement published today by portfolio company 2D Photonics Group
S.p.A ("2DP" or the "Company") that the European Commission has approved
€211 million in Italian State Aid for its wholly-owned subsidiary CamGraPhIC
s.r.l.

 

It will be one of the largest single public investments ever made to an
Italian deep-tech start up. Frontier IP holds a 9.1 per cent stake in the
Company.

 

The grant funding will be used to accelerate development and scale up 2DP's
advanced graphene photonics technology. This is designed to address one of the
biggest problems hindering the progress of artificial intelligence and other
advanced computing and communication applications by moving data much more
quickly within systems. It offers higher bandwidth density, lower latency and
significantly lower energy consumption than silicon photonics, and is
therefore faster and cooler.

 

A key pillar of the project is the construction of a pilot manufacturing
facility near Milan, designed to take graphene photonics from advanced
research into real-world production.

 

2DP completed a €25 million Series A funding round in March 2025 supported
by major governmental, industrial and financial institutions. Investors
included the Nato Innovation Fund, the Sony Innovation Fund, Bosch Ventures,
CDP Venture Capital, Join Capital and Indaco Ventures.

 

The Company was a joint spin out from a partnership between the University of
Cambridge and Italian research institute CNIT.

 

Frontier IP Chief Executive Officer Neil Crabb said: "The fact that 2DP has
managed to attract one of the largest ever public investments into an Italian
technology company demonstrates the potential for the Company's technology to
transform artificial intelligence and other advanced applications. I very much
look forward to the next steps in the Company's development."

 

2D Photonics statement begins

 

 

2D Photonics Group company, CamGraPhIC Approved For €211 Million Grant to
Fix One of AI's Biggest Problems: Increasing interconnect bandwidth whilst
reducing power consumption

 

Milan, Italy - The 2D Photonics Group has been given approval by the European
Commission for €211 million in funding by the Italian State to build a new
class of optical technology designed to solve one of artificial intelligence's
most pressing physical limits: how data moves inside advanced computing
systems.

 

Today's AI systems are no longer held back by a lack of computing power.
Instead, performance is increasingly constrained by the flow of data between
chips, accelerators, and memory. As models grow larger and hardware becomes
more dense, existing electrical and silicon photonic interconnects struggle to
keep up, consuming more power, generating more heat, and slowing systems down.

 

CamGraPhIC, the wholly owned subsidiary and research arm of 2D Photonics, is
tackling this problem head-on with graphene-based optical input/output
(Optical I/O) technology that replaces existing slower, power-hungry, and high
latency optical links.

 

By using graphene, a material with exceptional electronic and optical
properties, the company's approach enables a large increase in bandwidth
density, while delivering lower latency and significantly lower energy
consumption compared to the best silicon photonics available today, directly
addressing one of the biggest obstacles to scaling AI and high-performance
computing.

 

 "This investment goes straight to the heart of what's limiting AI today,"
said Ben Jensen, CEO of 2D Photonics. "Compute keeps getting faster, but data
movement hasn't kept pace. Graphene-based optical technology offers a way to
move vastly more data using far less power, which is exactly what the next
generation of AI systems will require."

 

The €211 million Italian State aid measure, approved by the European
Commission, will be one of the largest single public investments ever made in
an Italian deep-tech startup and will place the company among a small group of
companies globally working to redefine how data is moved inside future AI
infrastructure. While the project strengthens Europe's semiconductor
ecosystem, its relevance extends well beyond the region, targeting a challenge
faced by AI systems worldwide.

 

The funding, under the European Commission's State Aid Framework for research
and development and innovation, will be used to industrialise CamGraPhIC's
optical interconnect platform for deployment in AI accelerators,
high-performance computing systems, and advanced data centres, where bandwidth
density and energy efficiency have become critical bottlenecks.

 

A key pillar of the project is the construction of a pilot manufacturing
facility near Milan, designed to take graphene photonics from advanced
research into real-world production. The facility will support device
qualification, early manufacturing runs, and eventual transfer to high-volume
foundry processes, creating a direct pathway from lab to large-scale
deployment.

 

The project is expected to create over 150 highly skilled jobs across
photonics engineering, materials science, and semiconductor manufacturing. The
pilot line is scheduled to become operational in 2028 enabling early
engagement with system integrators and computing platform providers.

 

"The measure approval allows us to move quickly from innovation to execution,"
Marco Romagnoli, Founder and CSO added. "By building manufacturing capability
alongside the technology, we're laying the groundwork for graphene photonics
to become a practical part of future AI systems, not just a research promise."
 

 

CamGraPhIC's Optical I/O platform is designed for a future where optical
communication must move closer to the processor itself to sustain AI
performance gains. Rather than offering incremental improvements, the
technology aims to reset the limits of bandwidth, power efficiency, and
scalability inside next-generation compute architectures.

 

 

 

 

2D Photonics statement ends

 

 

 

 

ENQUIRIES

 

 Frontier IP Group Plc

 Neil Crabb, Chief Executive                                            neil@frontierip.co.uk (mailto:neil@frontierip.co.uk)

 Andrew Johnson, Communications & Investor Relations                    M: 07415 888 425

 Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk (http://www.frontierip.co.uk/)   andrew.johnson@frontierip.co.uk (mailto:andrew.johnson@frontierip.co.uk)

 Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser)                            T: 0203 328 5656

 Nick Athanas

 Singer Capital Markets (Broker)                                        T: 0207 496 3000

 Charles Leigh-Pemberton / James Fischer

 

 

ABOUT FRONTIER IP

Frontier IP unites science and commerce by identifying strong intellectual
property and accelerating its development through a range of commercialisation
services. A critical part of the Group's work is involving relevant industry
partners at an early stage of development to ensure technology meets real
world demands and needs.

The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes and licence
income by taking an active involvement in spin-out companies, including
support for fund raising and collaboration with relevant industry partners at
an early stage of development.

 

 

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