Company ranks in the top five in Computing category for its co‑packaged optics solution, pushing the boundaries of AI scale-up
SAN JOSE, Calif. — March 24, 2026 — Ayar Labs, the leader in co-packaged optics (CPO) solutions for AI scale-up, has been named to Fast Company’s prestigious list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026, ranking in the top five in the Computing category alongside Nvidia, Google, Crusoe and AWS. This year’s list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping industry and culture through their innovations.
As AI models continue to grow exponentially, scale-up architectures are confined to individual racks and limited by copper interconnects as thermal loads push cooling systems to their breaking point. Ayar Labs eliminates these bottlenecks with its TeraPHY™ optical engine powered by the SuperNova™ external light source. The company’s CPO solution enables thousands of GPUs to operate as a single unified system, breaking copper’s bandwidth and reach limitations across racks to meet the performance, power efficiency, and scalability demands of hyperscale AI infrastructure.
“AI scale-up infrastructure is hitting a hard limit, constrained within individual racks by copper,” said Mark Wade, CEO and co-founder of Ayar Labs. “This recognition by Fast Company reinforces what we’ve proven over the past decade: optical connectivity is foundational to delivering the performance and efficiency AI requires at scale. As the industry enters the inference era, entirely new architectures are required to deliver the scale, efficiency, and real-time performance AI now demands.”
Alongside the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Fast Company recognizes 720 honorees across 59 sectors and regions. To determine honorees, Fast Company’s editors and writers review companies driving progress around the world and across industries, evaluating thousands of submissions through a competitive application process. The result is a globe-spanning guide to innovation today, from early-stage startups to some of the most valuable companies in the world.
“Our list of the Most Innovative Companies is about spotlighting organizations that don’t just adapt to change — they drive it,” said Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “The companies we honor this year are redefining what leadership looks like in 2026, pairing bold ideas with measurable impact and turning breakthrough innovation into real-world value. They are setting the pace for their industries and offering a blueprint for what sustained innovation can achieve.”
The recognition follows a series of recent milestones, including the closing of a $500 million Series E funding round led by Neuberger Berman to accelerate volume production of co-packaged optics. The company also announced a strategic partnership with Wiwynn to bring CPO into rack-scale AI systems, moving optical connectivity beyond component-level innovation and into deployable hyperscale infrastructure.
The full list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies honorees can now be found at fastcompany.com. It will also be available on newsstands beginning March 31, 2026.
About Ayar Labs
Ayar Labs is transforming AI infrastructure with the industry’s first proven co-packaged optics (CPO) solution manufactured in partnership with the world’s leading semiconductor ecosystem. By unlocking performance gains and reducing workload costs in a power-constrained environment, Ayar Labs’ TeraPHY™ optical engines are key to unleashing next-generation AI scale-up. Founded in 2015, Ayar Labs is funded by domestic and international venture capital firms, as well as strategic investors including AMD, Alchip Technologies, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and VentureTech Alliance. For more information, visit www.ayarlabs.com.
About Fast Company
Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with fellow business publication Inc. For more information, please visit fastcompany.com.