Photon Capital(@PhotonCap):- Clifford Chao, Lightmatter's lead ASIC engineer for four years, joined OpenAI as silicon lead. - Chao worked previously at $GOOGL for 8+ years on TPUs and network-on-chip, and at Texas Instruments for 13 years. - He reunites with Richard Ho at OpenAI, who left Lightmatter in 2023 to start OpenAI's silicon efforts and now leads the Jalapeño chip project. > Lightmatter loses key ASIC talent to OpenAI's accelerating in-house chip program, signaling intensifying competition for silicon photonics engineering expertise as major AI infrastructure players build custom silicon stacks.

2026.10.30 15:05

- Clifford Chao, Lightmatter's lead ASIC engineer for four years, joined OpenAI as silicon lead. - Chao worked previously at $GOOGL for 8+ years on TPUs and network-on-chip, and at Texas Instruments for 13 years. - He reunites with Richard Ho at OpenAI, who left Lightmatter in 2023 to start OpenAI's silicon efforts and now leads the Jalapeño chip project. > Lightmatter loses key ASIC talent to OpenAI's accelerating in-house chip program, signaling intensifying competition for silicon photonics engineering expertise as major AI infrastructure players build custom silicon stacks.