Xianxin Guo

Dr Xianxin Guo completed his PhD in quantum physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology before joining the University of Oxford as a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellow. At Oxford he became the primary inventor of a fully optically trained neural network — a breakthrough that formed the scientific core of what would become Lumai.

Xianxin co-founded Lumai in 2022 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford, initially serving as Head of Research and later becoming CEO. Lumai's 3D optical computing approach performs AI arithmetic operations using beams of light in free space, bypassing the fundamental limits of silicon GPUs and integrated photonics. His work earned him a place in the prestigious Photonics 100 list and selection for the Royal Academy of Engineering's Shott Scale-Up Accelerator in 2024.

Under his leadership Lumai raised over $10 million in a funding round led by Constructor Capital, with participation from PhotonVentures, IP Group, Journey Ventures, State Farm Ventures, and TIS. The company, which won Best Overall Technology at the Global OCP Future Technologies Symposium, is targeting a 50x performance improvement over silicon-only accelerators while using just 10% of the energy — addressing the unsustainable compute costs of large-scale AI.