Photonics founder Dr Giulia Marcucci on the energy cost of AI — Orkney Tech Talks, Stromness

The second Orkney Tech Talk turns to a question that sits uncomfortably underneath the AI boom: what it costs to run. Dr Giulia Marcucci, co-founder and CEO of LumiAIres, will talk about building a computer chip that uses light rather than electricity — and that the company says cuts the energy AI needs by more than 90%.

Marcucci is a physicist with a PhD in nonlinear optics who spent around a decade researching optical neuromorphic systems before founding LumiAIres to commercialise the work. The company builds photonic AI processors: instead of shuttling electrons through conventional silicon, they run neural network calculations in light, which LumiAIres says allows inference at roughly a watt of power with minimal cooling. It has backing and support from UKRI, Scottish Enterprise and Barclays, and came through CodeBase and Techscaler.

Her talk will cover how the technology works in plain terms, why the energy demand of AI has become a hard physical constraint rather than a line on a budget, and what it takes to move a piece of fundamental physics out of the lab and into a product.

The talk will be followed by an open discussion on the environmental impact of AI — data centre demand, where that energy comes from, and what it means for places like Orkney that generate far more renewable power than they can currently use.

Date: Wednesday 28th October 2026

Time: 6pm–8pm (drinks and networking from 6pm)

Venue: ICNZ Hub, The Charles Clouston Building, Orkney Research and Innovation Campus (ORIC), Back Road Stromness KW16 3AW

Cost: Free