AI Photonics · Optical Interconnect
This theme owns the Western half of AI optical interconnect, including the part of the chain China cannot yet supply. The economics sit upstream: Lumentum is effectively the only volume source of the 200G-per-lane EML lasers that 1.6T transceivers require, which makes it a bottleneck rather than a commodity supplier. Coherent is the largest module maker and is integrated from indium-phosphide substrate through laser to finished module. Fabrinet manufactures optical modules for almost everyone, so it wins regardless of which designer gains share. Applied Optoelectronics is the high-beta module play. Ciena covers the systems layer with in-house coherent DSP and dominates the links between data centres rather than inside them. What drives it: bandwidth per GPU, the 1.6T ramp and laser-chip supply. The main risk is crowding — the sector is priced for flawless execution, and several names fell more than 10% in a single session in August.24H Performance
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Pre-market | Last updated at Sep 04, 2026 07:59:03