AI Generates Massive Amounts Of Data And This Company's Tech Helps Transmit It

Benzinga

Dr. Michael Lebby, chairperson and CEO of Lightwave Logic, Inc. LWLG, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access. Lightwave Logic develops proprietary engineered electro-optic (EO) polymers. The company's high-activity, high-stability organic polymers allow it to create next-generation photonic EO devices, which convert data from electrical signals into optical signals – critical to the functioning of the Internet. This means that with the company's technology, more data gets sent faster using less power than the current standard.  Lebby spoke about the increasing demand for faster data transmission required by AI and how his company's tech is uniquely positioned to provide a solution.

Transcript

00:00Dr. Levy, welcome back to the show.

00:08Great to see you again, Zined.

00:10I love the background.

00:11You've got something of a different look than usually when we talk, but where are you at

00:15right now?

00:16I am in my home office.

00:17I got visitors, international visitors, so I've been pushed out to the kitchen.

00:21So that's why you'll see it's an interesting background here.

00:25No matter how successful you are, they still find a way to kick you out of your workspace.

00:29You got to love it.

00:30Well, look, you and I have had so many conversations, but for the viewers that are watching you

00:33for the first time, give us a quick brief overview of what Lightwave Logic is, but especially

00:38in the commercialization process and what next year can kind of look like.

00:42I'd love to get insights there as well.

00:44Right.

00:45Yeah.

00:46So this last three months has been incredibly busy for us.

00:49So earlier this year, we actually went to a major conference and we showed some world

00:53class results.

00:54We had a lot of visitors to our demonstrations at the conference and various other places,

01:01but that's been followed up in the last three months with visits to our facility in Denver,

01:06Colorado.

01:07And so we've been seeing tier one companies come visit us, come check us out, go inspect

01:12what we really have there.

01:14And what we have is a world class materials facility that can ramp up polymer materials.

01:20We're also seeing some of our state of the art testing of super high speed.

01:25And so we've been showing them performance metrics, performance data, and it's been a

01:30really exciting last three months since I've last talked to you.

01:34So from a commercialization standpoint, this has been, I think, 2024 growing interest in

01:41our technology platform.

01:43What makes this company interesting for me is the fact that you're able to have your

01:47polymers not just be advanced, but you're able to do it at a faster speeds at lower

01:51costs.

01:52But help me understand how you're able to do that.

01:54Well, we do that because we design our own polymers and we've got really good control,

02:01both from an IP patent standpoint, as well as a performance standpoint.

02:05And these polymers perform better than the semiconductors.

02:09The semiconductor technology is already out there.

02:12So this is really exciting.

02:13And what we've done this year is we've actually showed customers the actual performance.

02:18So we're seeing super fast data rates.

02:21I'm not going to go into those details.

02:22We're showing that these data rates operate at super low voltage levels.

02:27And if you think about these two things, just those for the minute, super high speed is

02:31what's been really being driven by things like AI and low voltage really lowers the

02:38power consumption.

02:39So you talk to any data center operator, they're looking for creative ways to get that power

02:44consumption down.

02:45And this is a technology that can do it.

02:47So for us, showing these types of performance metrics in our facility in Denver, Colorado

02:53has been absolutely exciting.

02:54Yeah.

02:55Typically, whenever you see faster speeds, you assume higher costs, but that's not the

02:58case here.

02:59So that's what's most interesting to me.

03:01But you mentioned the conference, which is a 2024 European conference on optical communication.

03:07How was that?

03:08And what is presenting at these sorts of events benefit, and how does it benefit the company?

03:13So all the customers will be there.

03:14So just similar to the Optical Fiber Conference in March this year, OFC, where we first came

03:20out with this level of world class performance, we're now being invited to talk at the ECOC,

03:26that's the European Conference of Optical Communications.

03:29And this year it's being held in Frankfurt in late September.

03:33And not only have we been asked to give a talk on the performance of our work, we're

03:38actually being selected as one of the finalists for the hybrid optical integration category.

03:44And that's really exciting for us.

03:46So I mean, this is a conference that has the world's best companies from all over the world.

03:52And certainly being asked to give a talk and being a finalist too is actually really exciting

03:57for us.

03:58Yeah.

03:59And just being nominated is such a great accomplishment.

04:03Good luck on that aspect of it.

04:04Let's talk about, you mentioned finalists, which means there are other folks that are

04:07involved in this space as well.

04:10What kind of competition do you face?

04:11But more importantly, what's your biggest advantage?

04:13I understand you've got the polymers at faster speeds at a lower cost.

04:17What other advantages do you have?

04:19So one of the big advantages we have is that our technology fits really neatly into the

04:25big silicon founders.

04:27And over the last three months, we actually did announce that we're in a strategic relationship

04:32with a big foundry based in Singapore called AMF.

04:35And these are the folks that are doing our technology on 200 millimeter, huge eight-inch

04:40type wafers.

04:42And so this is one of the advantages over our competition.

04:45Our competition is typically technologies that are difficult to get into a silicon foundry.

04:52Whereas our technology, because it becomes in a liquid form, we can spin it onto the

04:56wafers.

04:57It actually works really great onto silicon wafers.

05:01And so that is one of the advances in addition to the high performance, because if you think

05:06about what we have is a disruptive technology compared to the incumbent semiconductors.

05:14While you want a disruptive technology, you don't want it to be that disruptive that you

05:18have to change all of the infrastructure in order to make it work.

05:22And so for us, having a technology that is really good in performance is disruptive enough,

05:28but it doesn't disrupt things like the foundries.

05:30It doesn't disrupt their processes.

05:33It doesn't disrupt their equipment.

05:35That's already there.

05:36And so we are making really good use of the infrastructure with our new technology.

05:41And that's why you have to be very careful when you use the word disruptive.

05:45Yes, we've disrupted performance, but we don't disrupt the infrastructure.

05:49And that's exactly what the industry is looking for.

05:53So many times we've heard the phrase of they were ahead of their time, right?

05:57Or a technology or a company just came out a little bit too early to where the retail

06:02folks, the audience, the world just wasn't ready for it.

06:04And that's what that reminds me of what you said, where you don't want to be too disruptive

06:07to where you can't utilize it because the infrastructure is not able to handle the advanced

06:12technology that you're dealing with.

06:14But speaking of technology, how does the AI boom impact your industry and is there any

06:18overlap there?

06:20So the AI boom, I mean, we've heard of companies called Nvidia that have done really well with

06:24their GPU chips.

06:26But what those GPU chips are, are electronic processes.

06:31So the processing, the computations are done electronically.

06:35What we have here is technology that actually modulates the optical signals that go down

06:42the fiber optics.

06:43So if you think about what may happen is in the GPU chips, AI is generating a lot more

06:48computational processes.

06:51Some of those computational processes will go to memories on chip, and some of them will

06:55go off chip down the fiber optic networks.

06:58That means there's more data that's to be sent faster.

07:01So we are indirectly benefiting from AI.

07:06So when AI is becoming more popular and people want to do more things with it, more computations

07:12occur in the GPU chips.

07:15That sends more information down the fibers to other, I guess, GPU chips or through the

07:21data centers.

07:22And we have a technology that really takes advantage of sending that data at a higher

07:27speed.

07:28So we indirectly benefit from GAI, which is really exciting today.

07:32All right.

07:33You mentioned chips.

07:34And it always reminds me of when I used to have to do schoolwork and the chips would

07:38be like, you know, the SanDisk chips would be like, what is it, 256 megabytes would be

07:43like this big.

07:44Now you can get like two terabytes in this small of one.

07:47So it's just amazing to see, like, my nephew doesn't even know what floppy disks are.

07:52So yeah, things have come a long, long way.

07:56Dr. Levy, it's always great to talk to you, but I wanted to give you the floor before

07:59I say bye.

08:00Is there anything else that we missed to talk about?

08:02The floor is yours to talk to our viewers.

08:04Oh, no, we've been increasing our position on the patent front.

08:10And so I think we had a patent issued in the last quarter that has been really exciting.

08:15And so we're continuing to file patents.

08:18And that really helps part of the business strategy of not only selling modulators, but

08:25usually creating the material, the electro-optic polymers that we can license.

08:29So we have a dual-pronged business model where we license our material, as well as put our

08:34material into devices to show people the incredible performance.

08:37But yeah, this has been a great summer.

08:40And I expect it to continue into fall and the end of this year.

08:45Awesome.

08:46Appreciate your time, as always, Dr. Levy.

08:47Thank you for coming on.

08:48Appreciate it.

08:49Thank you, Zainab.

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