ISRAEL —Israel's Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D), operating within the Israel Ministry of Defense, has entered into a multi-year framework agreement with LightSolver Ltd. for the development and delivery of its Laser Processing Unit (LPU), a photonic computing system designed to process computationally intensive workloads. The agreement follows the completion of earlier proof-of-concept activities and establishes a longer-term development and evaluation programme. An initial order covering the first 12 months has been secured, although the financial value of the engagement has not been disclosed.
The arrangement marks an expansion of LightSolver's commercial activities into government defence applications, moving beyond preliminary technical validation towards a paid customer programme. The framework also establishes provisions covering intellectual property and technology usage rights, which will govern the development and application of the computing technology throughout the engagement.
The programme is relevant to defence organisations facing increasingly complex computational requirements, including workloads that demand substantial processing capacity and shorter solution times. Photonic computing uses optical components and the physical interactions of light to perform computational operations. LightSolver's architecture employs an all-optical processing loop based on interacting lasers, offering an alternative to conventional electronic computing systems that rely heavily on graphics processing units (GPUs).
The development also addresses broader infrastructure constraints affecting high-performance computing. Growing computational demand is increasing pressure on semiconductor performance, electricity availability and data centre cooling infrastructure. Alternative architectures capable of reducing energy requirements or accelerating specialised calculations could influence future investments in defence computing, advanced research facilities and high-performance data processing. However, the technology's operational performance and suitability for specific defence workloads will need to be established through the programme's development and evaluation activities.
For LightSolver, the agreement provides an additional government-sector customer alongside its existing multi-year engineering programme with Boeing. Participation in defence-related computing programmes could create opportunities to adapt the technology for other military and government applications, including markets in allied countries. The company estimates its global addressable defence market at up to USD 5,000 million annually, with projected annual growth of approximately 15%; this represents the company's market estimate rather than confirmed demand or contracted revenue.
LightSolver is a photonic computing technology developer focused on solving complex mathematical and optimisation problems through optical processing architectures. It operates as a subsidiary of CollPlant Biotechnologies Ltd., a Nasdaq-listed biotechnology company. The Israel Ministry of Defense is the country's government defence authority, while its DDR&D directorate oversees research and development activities supporting defence technology requirements. The agreement strengthens the institutional connection between emerging computing technology developers and defence research programmes, while creating a potential pathway for further commercial applications in compute-intensive industries.
