The innovation grant supports Finchetto’s groundbreaking work in next-generation optical networking for greater energy efficiency in AI and telecommunications 

Guildford, United Kingdom – 10th December 2025 // Finchetto, the company developing the world’s first fully optical passive network switch for energy-efficient AI, today announced it has been awarded a Contract for Innovation through UK Research and Innovation. The project will see Finchetto further develop its photonic integrated circuits and see its technology deployed in a commercial pilot programme, marking a key milestone in bringing optical networking from the lab into real-world applications. 

Finchetto’s optical network switch, capable of both circuit and packet switching, will be trialled in a datacomms use case. Following completion of the project, this deployment will progress toward commercial development. 

“Winning this Innovate UK Contract for Innovation accelerates our mission to reinvent networking at the speed of light and bring fully optical infrastructure out of the lab and into the real world,” said Mark Rushworth, CEO and co-founder of Finchetto. 

Finchetto is addressing one of the most pressing challenges facing AI and telecommunications today: the growing energy consumption of data centres and hyperscalers, which already account for more than 1.5% of global electricity use. To unlock the full potential of AI, data centre infrastructure must become dramatically more energy efficient. 

Compared to the current industry-leading electronic switches, Finchetto’s first-generation optical switch achieves up to a 20x reduction in power requirements. Its fully optical, passive architecture removes the need for electronics within the switch, enabling ultra-low-latency networking and supporting advanced topologies such as Intel’s PolarFly for massively distributed compute. 

“AI is redefining the world – but right now it’s doing so at a pace the planet can’t afford,” Rushworth concluded. “Data centres are on course to become one of the largest consumers of global electricity, and simply scaling more silicon and more power isn’t a viable future. Finchetto was founded to break that energy–performance trade-off.” 

Learn more about Finchetto’s optical passive network switch

About Finchetto: 

Finchetto has developed the world’s first fully optical passive network switch for data centres, hyperscalers, High Performance Compute and telecommunications. 

Designed from first principles to enable energy-efficient AI, Finchetto’s groundbreaking architecture reduces power consumption by up to 20x and latency by up to 40x compared to traditional network switches. 

Enabling super-low power, ultra-low latency packet switching at the speed of light with massive throughput, Finchetto’s network switch will accelerate AI efficiently and sustainably and reduce global data centre energy demands by up to 20%. 

Media contact:
ThoughtLDR for Finchetto
finchetto@thoughtldr.com