Femtosecond laser factory opened.

Chipmaking, data centre equipment, and medicine all need more femtosecond lasers, yet global production capacity was only an estimated 9,600 units last year. Femtosecond laser company LITILIT have just opened a new factory in Vilnius (LT) and plans to reach 3,000 lasers a year at full capacity.

According to the company, the factory currently has the highest potential femtosecond laser capacity in the world. The majority of the company’s lasers will be exported to North America, Asia, and Europe.

The new factory covers 4,000 sq m and will produce around 3000 lasers a year at full capacity. The €6 million project includes a modern CNC metal machining shop, robotized femtosecond laser assembly and testing shops, and an ISO 5 cleanroom of about 2,500 sq m, one of the largest in the Baltics.

Nikolajus Gavrilinas

Nikolajus Gavrilinas, co-founder and CEO of LITILIT, says that the new factory marks an important milestone both for the company, which has been developing its laser technology since 2014, and for the whole laser industry.

“The growing use of femtosecond lasers in semiconductor manufacturing, data centre equipment, electronics, medicine and other fields is driving demand across Europe, North America and Asia. Our factory comes at exactly the right time and will serve businesses on all three continents. The Vilnius plant is only the first stop; later, we plan to replicate this model in other countries together with our international partners," says Gavrilinas.

Located in a modern logistics park developed by SIRIN Development in Vilnius, the factory covers over 4,000 sq m and houses a CNC metal machining shop, robotized assembly and testing shops, and an ISO 5 cleanroom of about 2,500 sq m, one of the largest in the Baltics. The total value of the project is €6 million.

Gavrilinas notes that femtosecond laser production remains limited worldwide because the technology evolved from scientific systems and is notoriously difficult to produce at scale. Last year, global femtosecond laser production capacity was an estimated 9,600 units, according to Reports and Markets.

LITILIT can scale laser production quickly because of its patented architecture based on modular design, reduced component complexity, and a high level of automation. At full capacity, the factory will employ about 150 people, several times fewer than conventional production would require. Besides scalability, the architecture also gives LITILIT's lasers a performance edge. According to Gavrilinas, they reach around 20% electrical-to-optical efficiency and are up to half the size of the industry average, which makes them easier to integrate into production lines.

The company developed its technology based on two international patents, one of which was made in collaboration with the centre for Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) in Lithuania.

Ramūnas Skaudžius, director at FTMC, says the factory is a reminder that the value of scientific research is measured not only by publications or patents. It also confirms that in Lithuania it is possible to complete the entire journey from a scientific idea to a product serving global markets.

“The laser technology developed and patented at FTMC has now become the foundation of advanced industrial manufacturing. Yet the technology itself is not the most important part of the story. What matters most is that knowledge created in Lithuania has been transformed into a business capable of competing on the international stage. This is a long and demanding journey that requires not only scientific excellence, but also entrepreneurial courage, investors’ confidence, and perseverance,” Skaudžius says. 

Femtosecond lasers use extremely short pulses that process materials with only minimal heat damage to surrounding structures. This quality, known as cold ablation, makes them indispensable in applications ranging from eye surgery and vascular stents to manufacturing computer chips and display screens.

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Build lasers with reduced complexity.

Scaling production without losing precision: Automation transforming the laser industry.

Ageing populations are set to put growing pressure on labour markets in Europe, with similar demographic pressures emerging in the US and China. As companies look to stay competitive with fewer workers, automation is becoming increasingly important for boosting productivity. Femtosecond laser company LITILIT says automation will allow it to manufacture 3,000 lasers a year with a team of just over 100 employees.

In a recent report, the European Commission warned that as Europe’s population shrinks and ages, labour market, healthcare, public finances and other sectors will be impacted. Similar aging trends are also visible in the US and China. The report points to automation, innovation and AI as part of the response.

For businesses, automation's benefit goes beyond easing the labour squeeze – it also significantly increases productivity. An August report(pdf) by the International Federation of Robotics found that automation can help smaller manufacturers reach productivity levels and competitive advantages that were previously available mainly to larger industrial companies.

Nikolajus Gavrilinas

According to Nikolajus Gavrilinas, co-founder and CEO of LITILIT, which recently started building a large-scale femtosecond laser facility in Vilnius, the laser industry is a clear example of how automation can help smaller businesses to scale. For LITILIT, it will allow the company to manufacture up to 3,000 femtosecond lasers a year, one of the highest capacities in the world, with just around 150 employees.

"Typically, building a femtosecond laser required highly trained specialists, because these advanced lasers evolved from scientific systems. While they deliver strong performance, they are notoriously difficult to produce at scale. We build ours on a patented, purpose-built architecture with fewer components, allowing us to significantly speed up production and reduce headcount," he says.

Another advantage of automation is making precision repeatable at scale. Femtosecond lasers require tiny optical components to be aligned with extreme accuracy, work traditionally done by highly trained specialists one unit at a time. Automation allows manufacturers to maintain that same level of precision across thousands of lasers while reducing variation between units.

Gavrilinas notes that automated manufacturing will also help LITILIT advance its goal of making femtosecond lasers scalable. The company is on track to finish its Vilnius factory this October and immediately begin production, gradually increasing capacity.

"Femtosecond lasers are used in fast-developing fields, from manufacturing the latest generation of semiconductors and data center equipment to performing complex eye surgeries. As demand for these advanced lasers grows, it would be very difficult to meet it using traditional methods, where complex assembly makes it difficult to scale output," Gavrilinas explains.

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@EU_Commission #Litilit #IFR #Robotics #Ai  #PAuto

Advanced lasers for Datacentres.

Femtosecond lasers, from LITILIT, are used to manufacture components for Ai data centre equipment, including parts used in advanced optical connections that speed up data transfer. Femtosecond lasers emit extremely short pulses, lasting quadrillionths of a second, that allow manufacturers to process next-generation materials with minimal heat damage.

The Ai data centre boom is projected to more than double Ai infrastructure capital expenditure in the next five years, while the market for optical connections that speed up data transfer will increase nearly 400 times, reports from Goldman Sachs and TrendForce show. According to experts at femtosecond laser company LITILIT, the Ai boom is also increasing the demand for advanced lasers that can process materials with high precision and minimal heat.

This Goldman Sachs report estimates that annual Ai infrastructure capital expenditure will grow from $765 billion in 2026 to $1.6 trillion by 2031, driven by surging demand for compute power, data centre construction, and energy infrastructure. The report also warns that power, labor and equipment bottlenecks could lengthen the time between capital commitments and operational data centres.

Nikolajus Gavrilinas CEO LITILIT

According to Nikolajus Gavrilinas, CEO of femtosecond laser manufacturer LITILIT (pictured right), one of the less visible bottlenecks could be the precision tools needed to manufacture components for next-generation data centre equipment.

“Many advanced Ai components, from semiconductor packages, glass substrates, to optical interconnects and advanced PCBs, require manufacturing technologies that can process materials without introducing heat damage. Femtosecond lasers are becoming one of the key enabling tools for this transition, and we believe demand will grow rapidly as Ai manufacturing scales,” Gavrilinas says.

Currently, one of the biggest issues in making data centres more efficient is speeding up data transfers. TrendForce recently forecast that the market for co-packaged and near-packaged optics - optical connections that speed up data transfer - will grow from around $100 million in 2025 to over $39 billion by 2030.

According to Gavrilinas, femtosecond lasers are increasingly used to make components for equipment that enables faster data transfer. For example, they can be used to make glass interposers – wiring layers used in advanced Ai hardware and data centre equipment to help connect chiplets. The laser drills microscopic holes through the glass, which are then filled with copper and turned into tiny vertical connections.

“A normal laser or mechanical drill heats the material as it cuts, and glass can crack or chip when heated unevenly. A femtosecond laser fires pulses so short – quadrillionths of a second – that the surrounding glass has almost no time to heat up. The same precision is also used to manufacture other data centre equipment wherever something needs to be cut, trimmed, or fixed with almost no heat,” Gavrilinas explains.

He notes that despite surging demand, producing femtosecond lasers at industrial volume remains difficult, as most femtosecond laser systems evolved from scientific systems and can deliver strong performance, but are difficult to automate and depend on qualified specialists.

To narrow the adoption gap, LITILIT developed a new technology based on a few patented inventions (link to patent 1, link 2), made by LITILIT co-founders Kęstutis Regelskis, Nerijus Rusteika, and Gavrilinas, in close collaboration with the Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) in Vilnius (LT). The technology allows to manufacture femtosecond lasers with purpose-built design, reduced component complexity and high level of automation.

In June 2026, LITILIT started the construction of a laser factory in Vilnius, and later plans to replicate the model together with international partners.

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