Roman Axelrod is the Founder and Managing Accomplice of XPANCEO. He has a background in constructing firms throughout pc imaginative and prescient, esports, and fintech, with expertise increasing operations into Western Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific area. Axelrod has negotiated and structured offers totaling over $5 billion and led three profitable exits.
XPANCEO is creating a next-generation good contact lens that goals to interchange conventional computing units by seamlessly merging the true and digital worlds right into a single prolonged actuality expertise. The corporate brings collectively main scientists, engineers, and executives to push the boundaries of human-technology interplay past the boundaries of silicon-based techniques. XPANCEO’s work is pushed by a tradition of innovation, excellence, and impression—centered on creating elegant, high-performance options that prioritize motion, embrace challenges, and try to make a significant distinction for each folks and the planet.
What impressed you to discovered XPANCEO, and what was the preliminary “aha” second that satisfied you good contact lenses had been the following frontier in computing?
For years, it was evident to me that our present computing units — fragile, cumbersome, and aesthetically missing — had been relics of a bygone period. Give it some thought. It doesn’t take a lot to appreciate that they maintain us again from fulfilling humanity’s loftiest ambitions, comparable to deeply exploring area and considerably extending human lifespans. Attaining such feats requires a technological leap, not mere incremental upgrades. Personally, I envision the following pc as one thing that, powered by AI, integrates seamlessly into the environment and will be effortlessly managed with our minds.
This imaginative and prescient crystallized once I was 31, throughout a chaotic condo renovation. My belongings had been stacked haphazardly, obstructing the TV, rendering even easy pleasures like enjoying PlayStation unattainable. Pissed off, I imagined projecting the sport onto the ceiling, with WhatsApp open in a single nook and Excel sprawled throughout the ground. That was the second it struck me. The world wanted an AI-powered XR system that had a revolutionary, final kind issue. But, for weeks, I grappled with figuring out what that kind issue might be.
That wrestle created monumental despair. Till, one late night time on the workplace — feeling mentally and emotionally drained, after all — I made a decision to go dwelling, and as I walked down the hall and mindlessly scrolled by Pinterest, a picture of a feminine astronaut caught my eye. Her vivid eyes, framed by a helmet displaying a celestial scene with orbiting planets, fully captivated me. In that prompt, it turned clear. This system wanted to be a sublime, weightless contact lens that would seamlessly mix into life. Overwhelmed by this realization, I sank to the workplace flooring and commenced researching obsessively. That was the true genesis of XPANCEO.
XPANCEO’s mission goes far past wearable tech—it is about redefining human-computer interplay. How do you envision that transformation enjoying out over the following 5–10 years?
I’m a agency believer in transhumanism — the mixing of biology and expertise to transcend our present limitations. This beneficial properties further relevance as a result of, when contemplating humanity’s bold objectives for the following century — comparable to colonizing area or considerably extending our life expectancy — it’s greater than evident that our present expertise received’t suffice.
The fusion of people and expertise will, basically and completely, redefine our capabilities. Over the following many years, as extra firms blur the road between biology and expertise, I foresee this integration enabling us to develop into a species with skills far past our present state. This might doubtlessly remodel us into a very interplanetary and enhanced civilization.
On this regard, we anticipate that our product will ultimately develop into mainstream. Whereas, initially, our audience includes people already accustomed to sporting contact lenses and the evident early-adopters, we challenge that our person base will develop from 15,000 in 2027 to 10 million by 2032.
Due to these excessive ambitions, security stays our paramount concern. On condition that our good contact lens is a medical system, it should bear rigorous regulatory approval processes earlier than it may be worn by anybody. These processes embody a number of phases, together with evaluating biocompatibility and present process scientific trials in managed environments. Much like different medical developments, the lens is being extensively examined to make sure security and efficacy. With out assembly stringent requirements, it will be unable to succeed in the market.
Nonetheless, these regulatory processes will be time-consuming, and our market availability timeline closely relies on them. Whereas we can not specify an actual launch 12 months, we’re actively pursuing the required approvals. We plan to start pre-clinical trials for sure prototypes this 12 months and purpose to start out testing the whole contact lens with all options by the tip of 2026. Solely after these trials are accomplished efficiently will the lens be prepared for market launch.
What are the core technological breakthroughs that make an invisible, weightless good contact lens even potential right this moment, when it was science fiction just some years in the past?
The materialization of our good contact lens prototypes stems from a confluence of cutting-edge applied sciences and a paradigm shift in method. Fairly than miniaturizing elements from present units, we’ve centered on implementing next-generation applied sciences particularly designed for ultra-small-scale purposes.
Nonetheless, it’s not solely about measurement. An excellent harder problem to crack is combining optical efficiency with transparency and performance — all in one thing you possibly can put on in your eye. Conventional supplies can’t ship that. You want one thing that may let mild by like glass, information it like fiber optics, and nonetheless carry electrical indicators like a microchip. Right here’s the place 2D supplies are available. Their excessive thinness provides them nearly good transparency, whereas their optical properties — as an example, a excessive refractive index — allow us to manipulate lights in ways in which merely weren’t potential earlier than at this scale. These supplies are important for creating elements which can be small and light-weight sufficient to suit right into a contact lens whereas sustaining excessive efficiency.
One other key ingredient to think about is anisotropy, which is the flexibility of those supplies to behave in another way relying on the route of sunshine or present. It’s a bit like wooden grain — it cuts simply a method and resists the opposite. We use this to construct microscopic constructions that may management mild very exactly, enabling issues like waveguides contained in the lens — successfully roads for mild — with out distortion or scattering.
This marks a brand new period in materials science, and it’s allowed us to resolve issues that had been beforehand thought unattainable. How do you embed electronics in a clear object? How do you shrink down optical techniques with out dropping perform? How do you make all of it weightless, seamless, and wearable? Moreover higher engineering, you want higher supplies, and that’s what we’ve completed.
This astonishing work is led by my co-founder, Dr. Valentyn Volkov. He’s a globally acknowledged knowledgeable in nano-optics and nanophotonics. His insights, mixed with AI-assisted design, have made it potential to construct techniques which can be smaller, basically smarter, and extra environment friendly. This manner, we’re fully reimagining what a contact lens can do and rewriting the science behind it, paving the best way for myriad further purposes in any business you possibly can consider.
Your work depends closely on superior 2D supplies and photonics. May you stroll us by the science behind how these lenses show data or course of knowledge?
Photonics is important for picture projection, notably nanophotonics, given the minuscule scale concerned. Putting a picture supply immediately on the contact lens is extraordinarily, extraordinarily troublesome, because the human eye can’t concentrate on such proximity. And there are two potential approaches: both projecting the picture ahead onto a airplane the place the attention can focus, or sending pre-focused mild beams immediately into the attention. First, we developed an answer that progressively reduces the exterior picture supply to a measurement akin to good glasses, projecting the picture ahead onto a airplane the place the attention can focus.
After, we’ve developed a brand new prototype the place the picture supply is built-in immediately into the contact lens. This employs a distinct optical system. As a substitute of projecting the picture ahead, it focuses mild beams and directs them straight onto the retina, already centered. This course of is named collimation.
The good lens, itself, is extraordinarily compact, so we pair it with a companion system, which is roughly the dimensions of an everyday contact lens case. This system serves a number of features — it expenses the lens and handles knowledge processing. This design permits the lens to stay light-weight whereas nonetheless supporting superior options.
Final however not least, the revolutionary use of 2D supplies permits us to combine electronics into the lens with out compromising its transparency or flexibility, one thing important to make it each useful and cozy for the wearer.
How does XPANCEO method the problem of miniaturization—particularly becoming advanced computing capabilities into one thing smaller than a grain of rice?
As I mentioned earlier, at XPANCEO, we transcend squeezing present applied sciences right into a smaller kind issue. Fairly than taking elements from bigger units, we concentrate on supplies and applied sciences which can be constructed for small-scale use from the get-go.
One among our key breakthroughs, as talked about, has been using 2D supplies. As a result of these are versatile and conductive, they are perfect for creating tiny, light-weight elements that also carry out at a excessive stage.
Our scientific group, led by Dr. Volkov, has been combining these supplies with advances in nanophotonics. By doing so, we’ve been capable of design techniques that function effectively even at a microscopic scale.
I need to comment and emphasize that conventional tech, like what’s utilized in smartphones and laptops, is just too cumbersome and inefficient for one thing the dimensions of a contact lens. Through the use of these next-generation supplies, we’ve been capable of break previous these limitations, and develop one thing really groundbreaking.
In your view, why is XR—particularly immersive, real-time interplay—so important for advancing synthetic intelligence past present limitations?
The present state of AI has led to plenty of hype, however on the subject of real-world purposes, we’re hitting a wall. Regardless of the guarantees of a revolution, basic AI nonetheless struggles to adapt to the complexity of the true world. The fashions we depend on can shortly develop into outdated, since AI lacks real-time studying and human-like understanding of the context of the world. Though we’ve got extra computational energy than ever, we’re nonetheless, from my notion, not getting nearer to attaining human-like intelligence.
The place AI excels, although, is in slim, structured duties. Issues like chess, coding, or different issues which have clear guidelines and outcomes and are comparatively straightforward to optimize. Nonetheless, these capabilities don’t translate to extra nuanced, day-to-day human challenges. As an illustration, automation breakthroughs are spectacular, however they don’t make AI really “clever,” for thus to say, they merely make it higher at one particular factor. I imagine the core challenge with that is that AI doesn’t expertise the world in the identical means people do. It operates primarily based on uncooked knowledge, not lived experiences. It’s that straightforward.
That is the place XR (prolonged actuality) might be the lacking hyperlink. By immersing AI in the true world — or not less than a digital world that mirrors it — XR can provide a means for AI to study extra dynamically. Not like static datasets, XR creates an interactive setting the place AI can interact and adapt in actual time, constructing a sort of instinct that goes past uncooked knowledge. The way forward for AI may not lie merely in constructing larger fashions, however in giving these fashions the flexibility to study from and work together with the world round them in a means that’s extra akin to how people study.
Past well being monitoring and content material consumption, what are a number of the most compelling use circumstances you foresee for XPANCEO’s good lenses throughout industries?
XPANCEO’s good lenses go far past well being monitoring or content material consumption. Our intention and imaginative and prescient is that they’ll redefine whole industries. By combining cutting-edge options like night time imaginative and prescient, zoom, and real-time well being monitoring, these lenses will seamlessly combine into day by day life, enhancing routine duties with out disruption.
The potential impression extends to fields like automation, manufacturing, and fintech. In automation, for instance, our lenses might improve operational security by offering real-time knowledge. In fintech, biometric transactions develop into a actuality, including each safety and ease to monetary processes. For navigation, the lenses provide hands-free, context-aware steering, which fully transforms how we work together with the world round us.
The advantages might even prolong to area exploration. In reality, on this sector, the lenses provide a pure match, giving astronauts prompt entry to mission-critical data. With 80% of astronauts already sporting contact lenses, this expertise aligns seamlessly with their present wants.
The medical prospects are equally transformative. XPANCEO’s lenses can help people managing diabetes, stress, dry eye syndrome, and strabismus. Moreover, they’ll improve imaginative and prescient for individuals who are visually impaired and provide coloration imaginative and prescient for the color-blind. In low-light environments, our lenses enhance security, whereas our inexpensive neural interface provides a means for people with paralysis to manage the lenses non-invasively, making a major distinction in communication and accessibility, notably for these with extreme mobility impairments. That is one other proof of the stable social impression we’re set to create.
Do you envision a future the place your lenses might develop into the default computing interface—changing smartphones completely? What must occur for that to develop into actuality?
The potential of good contact lenses to develop into the following computing interface is plain. Their seamless integration into day by day life makes them much more intuitive than right this moment’s smartphones, eliminating the necessity for an extra system. But, I need to say that even when smartphones fade into the background, different instruments — comparable to audio system, controllers, and specialised units — will proceed to play important roles throughout industries. This can be in a big selection of industries — automotive, aerospace, healthcare, and past.
Trying again on the evolution of computing, we’ve already seen how smartphones have reworked our lives by consolidating many duties as soon as reserved for desktop computer systems. However regardless of the rise of smartphones, desktop computer systems stay indispensable for sure duties and features. What smartphones did was make a brand new type of computing extensively accessible, creating a typical that when appeared unimaginable.
In an identical means, good contact lenses received’t exchange all the things. As a substitute, they’ll redefine the methods we work together with expertise. It is going to proceed to evolve into kinds that improve human capabilities, making what was as soon as thought-about futuristic merely a part of how we reside and work. On the finish of the day, expertise just isn’t solely about changing outdated instruments. It’s, at its core, about increasing the probabilities of how we expertise the world.
XPANCEO talks about ‘inherent magnificence’ and ‘embracing challenges.’ How do these values present up in day-to-day decision-making and product design?
Class, to us, is greater than floor or aesthetic magnificence — it’s the essence of how each facet of an organization operates — how your group presents itself, how seamless your buyer interactions are, and the tempo at which assist is delivered.
Take Apple, as an example. Their merchandise and design ideas radiate magnificence in each nook of their operation — from the minimalism of their brand to the cautious and glossy design of their shops. Whereas our product could not mirror theirs, our philosophy is identical. We got down to create an expertise that feels intuitive, cohesive, and effortlessly built-in into day by day life.
As we navigate the quickly evolving tech panorama, we acknowledge that innovation, particularly on the innovative, typically requires working by robust issues that may appear insurmountable. Nonetheless, for us, these challenges are what propel us ahead.
To handle these, the strategy we depend on is rooted in speculation testing. We don’t let the dimensions of an issue overwhelm us, we embrace it as an opportunity to discover myriad options. This iterative course of, steadily, results in surprising breakthroughs and pushes the boundaries of what we will obtain.
In a world the place digital interfaces are fairly actually turning into a part of our biology, how do you strike the precise steadiness between augmentation and intrusion?
The function of expertise in our lives is to boost, not hinder. Devices — and all technological developments, for this matter — ought to enhance how we reside, not develop into an obstruction. But, as we push the boundaries of innovation, we face legitimate considerations in regards to the potential for digital interfaces to develop into invasive. At XPANCEO, even when we’re nonetheless within the R&D section, we’re already contemplating these challenges.
Take the good contact lens, for instance. The combination of a digicam inside the lens raises apparent privateness considerations, in addition to the potential for misuse. There are jokes about college students utilizing it to cheat throughout exams and real considerations about XR options being activated in unsafe eventualities, like whereas driving or close to the subway tracks. These are legitimate preoccupations that we take very significantly.
Nonetheless, it’s vital to do not forget that our good contact lens just isn’t merely an XR system. It’s powered by AI, which implies we will design the lens with built-in algorithms to make sure security and respect for privateness. These algorithms can implement needed boundaries, making certain that the expertise stays inside authorized and moral pointers. As an illustration, simply as we discourage texting whereas driving, the lens can be designed to limit utilization in harmful eventualities, stopping distractions in context like driving or when close to doubtlessly hazardous environments.
Whereas it’s true that expertise can by no means totally remove misuse — folks nonetheless use smartphones in methods and conditions they shouldn’t — the aim is to offer safeguards that encourage accountable utilization. As these applied sciences evolve and develop into a extra pure a part of on a regular basis life, public notion will seemingly shift. Units like good contact lenses will develop into much less of an intrusion and extra of an unobtrusive enhancement, seamlessly integrating into our lives whereas respecting each private freedom and societal norms.
If XPANCEO achieves its full imaginative and prescient, how will the common particular person’s relationship with expertise change?
On the coronary heart of XPANCEO’s mission is a need to remodel the very essence of how we work together with expertise. My motivation, thus, is about reinventing the connection between people and the tech instruments we use. I’m a agency believer that expertise, at its greatest, has the potential to make us more healthy, happier, and simpler in each facet of life.
Nonetheless, the present technology of devices falls in need of fulfilling the profound ambitions we’ve got for the longer term. At XPANCEO, we see what we’re engaged on because the daybreak of a brand new technological period, a future the place expertise seamlessly integrates into our lives as an invisible but indispensable part, enhancing our capabilities and turning into an extension of our minds and our bodies.
After we succeed, expertise won’t be one thing we merely “use,” however one thing we’re. It is going to work in concord with us to succeed in new dimensions of our potential that we hadn’t even imagined earlier than. This shift will redefine what it means to reside, and fully bolster the very core of who we’re.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to XPANCEO.
