AAOI makes transceivers and lasers in-house, guides to $5B revenue run-rate by 2027 from ~$500M in 2025, has 3 of 5 hyperscalers as customers, and production — not demand — is the…

Lumentum specializes in lasers inside transceivers; only a handful of companies can make them. Nvidia's $2B multi-year purchase agreement and 200% data-com revenue growth confirm…

Coherent manufactures its own EML chips, builds transceivers, and sells finished modules; data-center segment surged 61%. Nvidia's $2B investment and S&P 500 addition force instit…

Ciena uses fiber to link entire data-center campuses as they expand to multi-building, multi-gigawatt scale; mentioned as a photonic stock but no detailed thesis or position.

AXT supplies the indium phosphide substrates on which every laser is grown, giving it a foundational position in the photonics supply chain; mentioned without detailed financial t…

Tower is one of the leading silicon photonic foundries working directly with Nvidia on co-packaged optics, the holy grail for lower latency and energy use; still early to mainstre…

Lightmatter published a Nature paper proving a photonic processor can run real AI models with accuracy matching electronic chips at a fraction of the power (vs 1,200W per GPU); ra…

Ayar Labs is a photonic compute startup valued at nearly $4B, indicating significant private capital flowing into optical compute; mentioned as a competitor without detailed thesi…

Neurophos is another photonic compute startup that raised over $118M with Bill Gates backing, signaling deep-pocketed interest in optical AI acceleration.