Ayar Labs Wins Demo of the Year Award at 2026 TSMC North America Technology Symposium

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 11, 2026--

Ayar Labs, the leader in optical interconnect solutions for AI scale-up, won the Demo of the Year Award at the 2026 TSMC North America Technology Symposium, in Santa Clara, California. The award is presented annually to the most popular demo, as chosen by visitors to the “Innovate with TSMC!” Demo Zone—a platform showcasing innovations from TSMC’s emerging customers at the Technology Symposium.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110944217/en/

Ayar Labs’ award-winning demonstration showcased its manufacturing-ready optical interconnect solution integrated into a chassis-level AI server reference design developed with Wiwynn. Built on Ayar Labs’ optical engine technology, the solution is designed to integrate across multiple form factors to meet different system and packaging requirements. The system pairs two AI accelerators, each with eight TeraPHY™ optical engines, to deliver more than 100 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth per accelerator, powered by SuperNova™ external light sources in the industry-standard ELSFP form factor. The demonstration highlighted how optical connectivity can extend high-bandwidth scale-up beyond the rack.

“Being voted Demo of the Year by the TSMC community is a meaningful validation of our team’s work to bring optical interconnect solutions to AI scale-up,” said Mark Wade, CEO and co-founder of Ayar Labs. “As AI enters the inference era, scaling compute is no longer just about more silicon; it’s about rethinking how systems are connected. Together with TSMC and its ecosystem, we’re enabling a new class of AI infrastructure where optical connectivity extends scale-up beyond the boundaries of the rack.”

Ayar Labs’ optical engines are built using TSMC’s Compact Universal Photonic Engine (TSMC-COUPE™) platform for advanced photonic integration, fabrication, and packaging to deliver the bandwidth, power efficiency, low latency, and scalability needed to connect GPUs and accelerators across racks. TeraPHY brings together electronic and photonic functions in a compact optical engine to support high-performance scale-up networking for AI inference and agentic workloads.

“Our collaboration with Ayar Labs on TSMC-COUPE™ is driving innovative optical interconnect solutions that are critical for AI scale-up,” said Lipen Yuan, Vice President of Business Development at TSMC. “TSMC is committed to empowering customers with leading technologies, robust manufacturing, and a strong ecosystem to help turn their ideas into reality. We look forward to continuing our work with industry innovators like Ayar Labs to advance next-generation AI infrastructure.”

The recognition follows a year of significant ecosystem and market momentum for Ayar Labs. The company raised $650 million in equity capital to scale manufacturing and joined NVIDIA’s NVLink Fusion ecosystem to bring CPO to rack-scale AI infrastructure. Most recently, Ayar Labs, Wiwynn and GUC presented the first live demonstration of an integrated optical compute system that pairs GUC’s ASIC with Ayar Labs’ TeraPHY optical engine and SuperNova light source, including real-time health telemetry, at the OCP Global Summit 2026.

For more information on Ayar Labs’ CPO solution, visit ayarlabs.com.

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 power-constrained environments, Ayar Labs’ optical engines are key to enabling 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, Applied Ventures, MediaTek, NVIDIA, VentureTech Alliance, and Wiwynn. For more information, visit www.ayarlabs.com.

Ayar Labs CEO & Co-Founder Mark Wade accepts the Demo of the Year Award from TSMC Vice President of Business Development Lipen Yuan.

DALLAS (AP) — Rapper Yella Beezy was found guilty on Wednesday of hiring the gunman who fatally shot rapper MO3 in a brazen daylight attack on a busy Dallas interstate in 2020.

Yella Beezy, 35, whose real name is Markies Conway, was unanimously convicted of capital murder by a Dallas County jury in the death of MO3, whose real name was Melvin Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In September, a jury found Kewon White guilty of capital murder for fatally shooting Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said the killing was the result of an yearslong escalating feud between Conway and Noble. Both men lived in Dallas.

“We don’t know what turned it for the jurors. … We appreciate the verdict,” lead prosecutor Tommy Adams told reporters. “We think they got it right today.”

“It’s been one of the most challenging cases over the last six years,” he added.

Prosecutors said Conway paid White $40,000 for the shooting.

Noble, 28, was driving on Interstate 35 in south Dallas around noon on Nov. 11, 2020, when White pulled alongside him, authorities said. White stepped out of his vehicle holding a gun. Noble got out of his own vehicle and began running on the freeway as White shot at him, authorities said.

Prosecutor Tommy Adams said White wore a mask and fired over 40 rounds from an AK-47-style pistol while chasing Noble.

White shot Noble and a bystander who was inside a car, police said. The bystander survived, but Noble died at a hospital.

During closing arguments, prosecutors showed jurors a video clip of Conway talking about revenge in an interview, saying he would “get his lick back.” Prosecutor Krystal Biggins drew a comparison between Noble’s killing and a roadway shooting that injured Conway in 2018.

In October 2018, Conway survived being shot while driving on a tollway in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville when someone pulled up next to him and opened fire, hitting him three times.

“This was for the world to see,” Biggins said. “Over a rap beef, we are here for capital murder.”

The defense argued that prosecutors did not prove their case. “This is capital murder, and the state has brought you a lot of speculation,” defense attorney John Gussio said.

Noble had more than 800,000 Instagram followers and was best known for a 2019 remix of “Errybody,” with Baton Rouge, Louisiana, rapper Boosie Badazz.

Conway is best known for his 2017 single, “That’s On Me,” and the 2019 song “Bacc At It Again” with Quavo and Gucci Mane.

Musician Yella Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, passes through a metal detector as he enters the court after a break in his murder-for-hire trial in Dallas, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Musician Yella Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, stands in court during his murder-for-hire trial in Dallas, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Musician Yella Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, center, walks in the court's hallway during a break in his murder-for-hire trial in Dallas, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Musician Yella Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, sits in court during his murder-for-hire trial in Dallas, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)