Linque wins the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge

Congratulations to Phase 1 xG-startup Linque on being named a winner of the 4th edition of the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge! The ICTGC, run by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, is one of the most competitive deep-tech competitions in the world. This round drew 209 startups from 38 countries. Eleven made it through, and Linque is one of them.

Linque builds photonic chips, which are processors that move and handle information using light instead of electrons.

The problem they are working on is one that AI development keeps running into: models are getting larger, but the hardware that moves data around inside computers is struggling to keep pace, and it consumes a great deal of energy in the process. Linque's silicon photonics technology is designed to address that bottleneck directly, moving data faster while using significantly less power.

Winning in Taiwan carries particular weight because Taiwan sits at the center of the global semiconductor supply chain. For a company building chip technology, those are the partnerships and collaborations that matter most when it comes to scaling, and the recognition opens doors that can be hard to reach.

"This is an important and exciting step in our journey towards large-scale programmable photonics solutions," said Dr. Samarth Vadia, Linque's CEO and co-founder. The team will present their technology and receive the award at InnoVEX in Taipei from June 2 to 5, 2026.

Congratulations to Samarth Vadia, Jonathan Förste, Victor Funk and the entire team!

More information: https://linque.eu/