"Potential FCC rules on optical transceivers more likely to come at 3.2T" - $LITE, $AAOI, $COHR, $SIVE. Morgan Stanley met with Washington officials: - Restrictions would likely start at 3.2T modules made in China (800g/1.6T would be left alone) - Potential restrictions would likely keep laser market tight (combining US DSPs + lasers could meet the 65% US value threshold per MS) - Chinese modules could qualify if 65% of bill of materials is US content. Chinese modules using US DSPs and lasers are already near that level - Analysts expect the positive impact on laser pricing... to be more important than any broad redistribution of transceiver market share. - Analysts don't expect this to bottleneck hyperscaler AI buildouts, they name InP substrate supply as the key variable to watch (hello $AXTI ) TLDR: Component suppliers in general are really positive. Like $SMTC probably winner here for TIAs/drivers (I don't think this was listed), maybe $MXL for DSPs too. $AAOI another large beneficiary. $SIVE is high-key alpha for laser beneficaries since they have "tremendous capacity" coming online, and that points to US foundries (they haven't formally disclosed location). Since previous slideshows show 2 US foundries 1 Taiwan foundry (Win Semi) in terms of their capacity partnerships. And it's process of elimination. From CIOE Channel checks it does look like they're starting to work with Chinese pluggable players, (so they'd avenues moving forward as US supply chain component beneficiaries). Of course $LITE / $COHR would be happy. TLDR: Western supply chains for Lasers / DSPs / TIAs / others are already bottlenecked but qualified capacity becomes even more important.

Reminiscent of $NVDA w/ $LITE + $COHR: Foxconn is now considering joint investments to avoid upstream material shortages. Foxconn Interconnect Chairman identifies CW lasers and fiber as the biggest bottleneck in photonics. Very interesting to see these two themes reiterated across industry commentary. Almost like a certain Anime character on X was right about CW laser bottlenecks.

$SIVE has its own piece in Digitimes btw, which is appreciated industry recognition outside of Sweden. I think Sivers 100M+ CW DFB laser capacity buildout forced the industry to revisit its models and generated considerably more coverage. BC it puts Sivers into T1 laser capacity convo w/ $COHR, Sumitomo, Furukawa, $AVGO, Landmark, and $LITE if it executes on its ramp. But outside of that, CIOE 2026 channel checks were really meaningful since the community found Sivers is working with Chinese pluggable players + setting up an office locally. I'm getting dejavu to the time I pointed out $SIVE + $JBL at OFC for their 1.6T LRO, but nobody believed the link until there was an actual press release. Anyway, proud to see this little company growing up

Yep, I'm personally high conviction on the AI trade (especially photonics/memory) despite macro. - $NVDA gave forecasts for $1.3T hyperscaler capex ($100B+ above BofA analyst expectations) - $SPCX Wells Fargo forecasts are ~$263B for 2027. - $127B spend in 2027 for Anthropic/OpenAI model training + inference from internal investor documents (WSJ). - Even the Pentagon (US gov) is looking to fund the AI buildout, with $5B potentially into Fluidstack. What sectors do I think capex flows hit the hardest? Photonics + Memory. Trendforce for example est. DRAM and NAND to be 68% of hyperscaler capex in 2027. So when all that memory procurement spend hits the balance sheets of $MU, $SNDK, Samsung, $SKHY with 70-80%+ margins. I don't think these companies care about short term macro scares. And when your leading memory companies are all allocating capacity for DDR5/HBM or high end memory, with little visibility on legacy memory supply coming online. What does that say about the durability of ESMT/Etron/Winbond and others? And when your optical content/GPU goes up for rubin ultra + $META / $GOOGL TPU v9, etc. Alongside TAM eg. $131.4 billion (+81% revision) for 2027 optical module forecasts. Who benefits from supplying all that lasers during a shortage other than $LITE / $SIVE / $AAOI / $COHR? I think the overwhelming fundamentals + growth of some of the AI sector companies will outperform macro.

Citibank TMT: "lasers and optical fibers are being positioned as the "next HBM." I've been talking about lasers like $LITE / $AAOI since 2025... and architectural shifts toward CW, ahead of the current industry consensus. And fully agree with Lightmatter/Citi. Just for reference: For lasers: $LITE / $SIVE / $AAOI / $COHR / $MTSI / Furukawa / Sumitomo are your better known ones. For fiber: $GLW / Furukawa / Fujikura / Sumitomo are your more well-known exposure (obviously a lot more in the supply chain) *disclosure, personal exposure to theme With added commentary that: "Tight supply conditions will support a scarcity premium for these assets." We're already seeing price hikes with lasers as seen with $SIVE channel checks at CIOE 2026 Shenzhen today + $LITE commentary from earnings. So I think the 2027–2028 photonics supercycle will look a lot like memory did in 2025–2026. Especially as optical content/GPU-ASIC goes up significantly per Goldman Sachs revised estimates...

Glad $SIVE is attending CIOE Shenzen and hope my followers can go too! If you want my read on current landscape: -> Chinese pluggable makers like CIG (剑桥科技) are facing severe shortages in 70mW-200mW lasers. If you look at filings from CIG, they claim "substantially longer delivery times and deposits to secure capacity” along with statements of shortages. -> Innolight and others were also looking to secure multiple laser suppliers with LTAs recently from their filings. On the US side of things: -> $COHR was a major merchant laser supplier before, but largely withdrew from the market after rerouting them internally. "I do not see any time in the near future where we would be selling Indium Phosphide lasers externally." From their ER transcript. And then likely turned into a buyer in an already supply constrained market... where "over the long term, we will have some portion of our datacom transceivers that will be supported by external sources." -> $AAOI not really known to be a merchant supplier, but said same thing about laser capacity being rerouted towards transceivers. And having to turn away customers for lasers. -> For $LITE, they still supply lasers but stated: "We are commanding a significant price premium" for CW lasers $LITE Wupen Yuen: "wherever they can get the laser source, they will use that solution to support their build-out." So hinting... about customers just finding anything available due to shortages. -> $MTSI has no meaningful capacity online now, but they're already stating customers are approaching them with urgency to secure CW laser supply. -> Trendforce reported $AMD and hyperscaler CSPs are aggressively going out to secure CW laser supply to avoid future bottlenecks. And then you have Europe... Where $SIVE is coming online with "tremendous capacity available now" from their foundry partners. With 100M+ laser capacity Q4 2027, and maybe if you look at their 2:1 ratio implying ~200M targeted laser capacity from external foundries. They also happen to offer the same power range (70mW, 100 mW, 200mW) as the ones currently in shortage by pluggable makers in China. There's a massive void to fill, so this dramatically increases the chance of converting customers. (esp. Supported by Lumentum statements) My speculation was that some of the 6 active pluggable engagements were from China? Which is why they're attending the conference. So to any of my Chinese followers, maybe you can ask a few questions like: - if Europe is a laser source geography, if Innolight/Eoptolink/Cambridge are considering $SIVE. - if they're seeing ASP hikes in lasers, and what CW products are hardest to obtain If you are attending CIOE in Shenzhen!

$MRVL SVP and CTO of Optical Engineering Radha Nagarajan, at Semicon Taiwan: 1. Names Europe/Japan for laser supply sourcing as examples for SiPH modules. Very interesting that Marvell's SVP had Europe in mind when giving examples of laser supply sourcing for SiPH modules. I can't really name any notable public EU merchant laser suppliers other than $SIVE. Japan I can namedrop a few like Sumitomo/Furukawa etc. Maybe I'm reading too much into the geography, but a lot of US players like $LITE / $COHR / $AAOI are redirecting laser capacity internally, so it's interesting that the US wasn't mentioned. 2. Silicon photonics, high-speed drivers, amplifiers and DSPs come from other suppliers, with final integration taking place in Taiwan Makes sense, with $TSM COUPE / $ASX / ShunSin, and others. 3. Nagarajan appears to say NPO could arrive first around late 2027–2028, with full CPO continuing afterward. Good to hear more about commercialization timelines. $LITE similarly sees NPO around late 2027-H1 2028, while expecting CPO laser shipments in H2 2027 ahead of CPO scale up deployments in 2028. Revenue from upstream suppliers usually hits a bit earlier. 4. $MRVL on Google's TPU program vs. $AVGO / Mediatek and others. "Hyperscalers are seeking greater supply-chain diversification. If Google selects Marvell for a particular AI-chip segment, that does not mean it will stop working with MediaTek or Broadcom". Guess he's just trying to emphasize pie keeps growing for ASIC suppliers, nothing really too new. 5. All of Marvell's advanced ICs and ASICs are manufactured at TSMC, making the foundry central to the broader architecture. $TSM backbone of AI as usual. TLDR: - Very odd Marvell's SVP highlights Europe for laser sourcing, given how small a pool for merchant suppliers there is... - NPO volume looks late 2027, CPO after that. Upstream optical suppliers should start seeing revenue earlier

$TSM Vice President of Advanced Packaging: "Foundries can scale up the optical engine, but the real bottlenecks to large scale deployment lie elsewhere... Including lasers, optical fiber, fiber-optic connectors, and test" (UDN) Just some bucket ideas: Lasers: $LITE, $SIVE, $COHR, LandMark (3081), LuxNet, Sumitomo, Furukawa Optical fiber / FAU: Foci, Browave, $GLW, Sumitomo Fiber Optic / CPO Connectors: BizLink, $GLW , Fujikura, Nextronics, COXOC CPO testing: MPI (6223), Advantest, $FORM, Msscorps, $KEYS, Chroma (disclosure: exposure to theme above, individual names not named by TSMC) There are others I like as well, such as ShunSin, which now has explicit TSMC COUPE exposure but probably belongs under a different category like packaging/integration. eg. "Foxconn unit ShunSin confirms TSMC COUPE partnership" I don't think there's anything too new vs. H1, aside from ongoing news (eg. FAU looks like there will have a demand imbalance in 2027, from a report last week). But it's helpful to reiterate overall beneficiaries from time to time...

Just some random ideas from Elon’s post: $AAON - Chillers / liquid cooling $NVT - Cooling $MOD - Chillers / Cooling $IESC - Wiring $MTRS - chillers $JCI - chillers $HPS.A - Transformers (disclosure I own positions in this) $PRY.MI - networking/wiring(fiber) $CRDO / $AAOI (same) / $LITE / $COHR - networking Since Elon Musk cited: - transformers - wiring - liquid cooling - massive chillers + complex networking As the point of failure for AI compute buildout. Which is “harder than finding power”

Just my final recap on thoughts + fundamentals of $SIVE from ER: Pluggables (1.6T Ramp) for 2027: - $JBL (1.6T LRO, confirmed) Orders H1 2027, Ramp H2 2027 -> -> Likely multiple hyperscaler customers - 3 pluggable makers (evaluation) - 3 pluggable makers (supply assessment) Reference Design for likely H2 2027–28+: - $GFS (Globalfoundries) SCALE (confirmed)) -> -> Likely $AMD and other hyperscalers as CPO customers External Light Sources / Optical Engines for 2027: - $POET (confirmed) -> -> Lumilens / hyperscaler end users - O-Net (confirmed) -> -> Massive ODM/OEM for Hyperscalers + Asia - Likely $AEVA (mapping) -> -> supplying to OE -> hyperscalers / lidar - SemiNex (confirmed) Optical I/O for 2028: - Ayar Labs (confirmed) -> -> Likely $AMD, ALchip, and hyperscaler ASIC program end users + $NVDA NVLink - $MRVL Celestial (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) - Lightmatter (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) - Lightelligence (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) Then potentially $AAPL for 2028 for next-generation wearable updates and other programs from TFLN with Lightium. In terms of capacity allocations: - Win Semi - 1 other foundry (with tremendous allocations) during an InP CW DFB laser shortage. These are all on-going developments/qualifications since Sivers is targeting next-generation SiPH + CW with 1.6T and CPO for 2027-2028. Especially as Goldman Sachs models the CPO opportunity going from effectively near-zero today to ~$91B TAM by 2028. However my criticisms were: => Main focus was not on communicating economic scale of 2027-2028 optical ramps to Western audiences. => Legal vagueposts around NASDAQ listing should be dropped, and clear direction should be set + executed faster on. =>Too much focus was put on defending smaller current revenue/TTM revenue/pipeline conversion (allspace, Tachyon.) relative to future qualifications/partner size/capacity/potential. $SIVE needs to position themselves as a forward looking, global hypergrowth optical company supplying lasers to hyperscaler programs. And not let the narrative get dominated by backward looking metrics. And as Morgan Stanley put it... "Key [CPO] participants include … $LITE, $COHR, and Sivers laser supply". I'm personally a happy $SIVE shareholder for high-beta exposure to the next 2027-2028 optical shift with 1.6T/CPO.

It’s been a little disappointing to see a pattern with some people I've interacted with on X: - try to engage with the same audience, then quickly move toward aggressively monetizing it - get upset when I choose not to participate in or amplify paid groups - throw out personal or illogical attacks and try to reframe that as simply disagreeing over fundamentals When I first joined X, a lot of finance content revolved around watches/private jets + options, paywalled communities promising the "secrets of Wall Street," and squiggly-line charts. One of the things I've wanted to do differently is publish my research and reasoning openly, for everyone. I think this definitely resonated with folks given my follower growth. But of course, this growth can also create friction with people whose business models rely on using X to funnel audiences into paid services or expensive paywalls. My subscription has been $1 for months and will stay at the minimum, despite claims at the beginning I would raise it to $100. All of my core theses are published on the main timeline for free. I could put substantially more behind a paywall. I just don't want to. I just prefer sharing the ideas openly and letting everyone decide for themselves. Many ideas have worked out well: $AXTI, $NBIS, $AEHR, $MU, $INTC, $EWY, $MRVL, $LITE, $RPI, $IQE, $SOI, $TSEM, $ARM, $COHR, and a lot more. Others ran into unexpected industry delays, like $LPKF with glass substrates and Auros with hybrid bonding. Some are still playing out into 2027/2028, including $SIVE, Foci, Shunsin, $CCXI, $XFAB and the broader CPO/humanoid themes. Some are brand new like Etron/ESMT for DDR2/DDR3. And many like $JBL to Murata to $MXL, I just share for fun to see if the idea is right. Not every idea will be right. That's part of research. But I'd much rather have an X where people openly publish the thesis and reasoning so everyone can learn from it. Than one where information increasingly disappears behind $100 paywalls or becomes diluted with engagement-bait noise. Hopefully I can help create a new culture on X rather than amplify the old one.

If I had to be critical of $SIVE earnings: 1. Management underweighted the two disclosures that matter most. -> 6 pluggable engagements -> Foundry capacity (during an industry bottleneck) That's the most important part of the call and should have been the focus to provide economic scale of them. But we got 2-3 sentences about it. And it shouldn't take an Anime avatar on X to talk most about the implications of those. 2. CFO needs retraining or bring on a new one. The lawyer like answers were infuriating to listen to as a shareholder. Even I got pissed off with this statement: "we will evaluate the timing and decide whether the conditions are right to move forward at that particular time." It should be a 100% given by now they file for dual listing to escape hostile Swedish markets. Shareholders didn't fund a future growth type company to hear lawyer-like answers. Again, this was probably one of the worst answers the CFO could have gave and there needs to be firm commitment along with faster timelines. 3. $70M should have gone toward M&A and dual listing. -> Brutally honestly speaking, it's a waste of capital to focus on hybrid manufacturing at this stage and I was disappointed to hear this during this timeframe. It's eventually needed but with 2 foundry suppliers -> You have a ton of new capital and large marketcap. Use it to pull $AVGO style acquisitions of Cloud Light style IP for pluggables or optical engines. Lumilens went from 0 -> $5.5B in 2 years and now with hyperscaler engagements. Sivers should expand out of the laser chokepoint as fast as possible and not stay just a component vendor. And most of all, who cares about competing with customers? If a customer says: "if you do pluggables, we'll go with other players for lasers" who?? $LITE / $COHR / $AAOI reroutes their lasers to internal usage. Lot of your Asian players already allocated. Abuse the current bottleneck as much as possible because there's almost no qualified choices left. And I'm certain all the partners are trying to vertically integrate upward toward the laser level too and compete. If there was a new OE/pluggable accusation attempted during the Q2 time frame, things would have been a lot different. _ TLDR: $SIVE should aim to be the next $LITE and blitzscale like a Silicon Valley company. Use that $70m capital to move faster H2, and at the bare minimum finish readiness then. And expect NASDAQ listing to be finished H1 2027. Not "evaluation" at that timeframe. And use the capital + equity to expand downward into optical engines/ELS/optical transceivers using your equity valuation, and buy a Celestial/Ayar/Cloud Lite type startup. As for the wording of the call, markets care about economic value of the foundry allocation + 6 pluggable players, not other business segments. $SIVE has been extremely conservative to date, but they need to speed up and communicate to forward looking US/Int shareholders. Not geared toward local Swedish audiences who care about Q2/TTM revenue. Otherwise they'll be treated like an Asian component supplier and eventually be valued like an EU one.

When retail piles into influencer names and then asks me to chart them, it has often marked a temporary top. Examples include: $MTPLF in 2025 $IONQ, $RGTI, $QUBT, $QBTS in 2025 $GLD and $SLV in Feb 2026 $SIVE, $LITE, $AAOI, $AXTI, $SLNH, $WYFI and $COHR a few months ago in 2026 Guess which sectors they’re asking for now? Simplicity is always the key. You don’t need to own multiple winners. Owning more names does not mean better returns. @HeidingOut @blondebroker1 @cantonmeow @matthughes13

Here's the angle I'm looking at $SIVE at: Companies/CSPs have been going out of their way way to lock up any qualified CW laser capacity for optical transceivers. So now, Sivers is coming into the industry with: - Large capacity from Win Semi - "tremendous capacity that is available now" from a new foundry (likely qualifications since 2024) since it's engaged "for a while" And what excited me from this earnings was the "6 pluggable/module" engagements (which is an enormous amount). The nuance I'm reading is: - $COHR said it sees no near term ability to sell InP lasers externally because internal transceiver demand consumes all available - $AAOI said the same about consuming laser capacity internally (wasn't a major merchant supplier before though). - $LITE has been bottlenecked and been buying lasers off the open market Your previous merchant players rerouted laser capacity internally. So a lot of the bigger names (eg. Eoptolink/Innolight as just a random example) are probably looking to source more lasers. And that kinda matches the quote "capable of very rapid qualification and ramp" (which would not match Series B startup)... Lot of people are asking why aren't there LTAs to 2030 then? -> You can't just randomly escape the qualification process that established players have already completed. Why aren't the customers disclosed? And as seen with the $MRVL + $POET engagement, you can't just disclose the vendors you're working with. But the "$1.2B opportunity pipeline" almost doubled relative to the jump of $JBL + $GFS. So it's signals that the new pluggable engagements might be pretty substantial relative to Jabil. So if $SIVE comes along with enormous amounts of CW DFB laser capacity during a supply shortage... The industry conditions have changed in a major way that increases conversion rates of engagements. And with the sheer size from all your ~est. customers jabil, globalfoundries, poet, aeva, lightium, ayar, (maybe lightmatter, celestial, lightelligence), 6 other pluggable players, and others. I think Sivers is going to cook after connecting the dots.

I know everyone’s watching $NVDA earnings right now… But did you know Landmark signed a 4 year CW agreement with US customer to ensure “sufficient supply”? So now you have: - $LITE (capacity gone) - $COHR (capacity gone) - Landmark (capacity committed) - $AAOI (capacity for transceivers) - $MTSI (not online) - $SMTC (limited) I remember saying earlier this year CW lasers would be the next optical shift and heavily bottlenecked by Nvidia? So fun watching this play out, with players signing LTAs already to 2030 (signaling less availability for other players). Implications for $SIVE / Win Semi are very material as one of the few remaining CW merchant suppliers with capacity (+ CPO-grade lasers). Let’s see how they execute.

I feel like AI investing is simpler than what people expect. Because $NVDA + Jensen literally tells everyone what's coming. But somehow. Almost every. single. time. Markets dismiss it until it actually happens? Be Nvidia in 2025: Buys up EML and laser capacity. Markets dismissing it: "Photonics is a bubble and like quantum! ____ company is a scam with shady management" 1 year later: $LITE +678%, $AAOI +475.12%, $COHR +260.7%, $AXTI +3,843.9%. _ Nvidia in 2026: Buys up CW/EML capacity with LTAs. 800V shift. Extraordinary explicit about CPO shift. States Physical AI as the next theme. Markets now: "CW players are meme stocks! 800v, CPO is not coming anytime soon, Humanoids are not profitable!" Yeah... We'll see what happens in 2027. I think I'm putting my money on Jensen/Nvidia as the leading indicator.

My main takeaway was that your merchant CW laser suppliers seem to be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT now. But TLDR of $COHR earnings: "given the demand that we see in our DC business with transceivers, I don’t see any time in the near future where we would be selling indium phosphide lasers externally" - Ton more value placed on companies that sell InP lasers externally if $AAOI can't doesn't enough capacity for first gen-CPO deployments, $COHR not selling externally... I guess that's why $MTSI said a ton of customers are approaching them with urgency for InP CW DFB lasers (and they dont even have meaningful capacity coming online until EOY 2027) $AAOI -> Internal $COHR -> Internal Buyers -> fewer places to look for capacity. "Our backlog now extends out, fiscal 2027 is basically completely booked out. We are booked really through the end of calendar 2027" [ Massive massive demand visibility] - Coherent also mentioned LTAs spanning end of decade. So this kinda reinforces what $POET CEO said at their AGM that the "big 3" are fully sold out next 2 years. "we’re not constrained in the assembly and test capacity right now. We’re really just constrained by the ramp of the indium phosphide production" - Just for the bottleneck bros in terms of assembly/test not a bottleneck. "absolutely no push-out of CPO demand. In fact, it has been the opposite. We have seen demand increase and request from customers’ demand getting pulled in" "we continue to expect revenue from CPO for scale-up applications to start to flow in the second half of calendar 2027" - Big read through on other CPO players for scale up if $LITE, $COHR reaffirm revenue from CPO scale up coming h2027. - "quarterly revenue exceeding $3 billion by the end of fiscal 2027" - $COHR revenue go brrr So for regular numbers it's: - $2.046B revenue (+13.3% Q/Q, +33.8% Y/Y), main revenue ramp looks to be happening entering Q4 into 2027 - Non-GAAP gross margins: 40.2% Next quarter guide is: - Revenue: $2.2–$2.4B revenue - Non-GAAP gross margins: 39.5-41.5% Basically: $1.69B -> $1.81B -> $2.05B -> ~$2.30B -> $3.0B (end of FY 2027) ~39% -> 39.6% -> 40.2% -> ~40.5% (gross margins) For operating margins: 18.0% -> 19.5% -> 19.9% -> 20.3% -> 21.8% Little less impressed compared to $LITE margin growth in terms of profitability, but revenue scale for $COHR growing rapidly.

So this is just what I'm seeing with $SIVE and the CW DFB laser chokepoint right now. From optical earnings: 1. $LITE: unexpected demand and imbalance for UHP CW lasers. - Had ability to price up ASP for lasers. - Scale up CPO on track for H2 2027 shipments, called out any CPO scale up delay rumors as noise. Lumentum confirmed timelines (that CPO players like Sivers sold off of misleading reports from), high margins, and extreme demand for qualified CW lasers. 2. $AAOI: doesn’t have enough CW laser capacity because of too much optical transceiver demand. - Not meaningfully participating in first-gen CPO deployments, with $MTSI not looking like they're in it either but focusing on NPO. Haven't seen much with $SMTC after their HieFo acqusition. - Called lasers as the bottleneck within a 20-40% demand imbalance for transceivers. - Says customers approaching them every week asking them for supply + to move faster. AOI confirmed demand imbalances + bottlenecks for lasers. And we got an even smaller pool for first-gen CPO players. 3. Both $AAOI and $LITE claimed Chinese players were years behind for CPO lasers and far behind stated claims in qualified capacity. - $AAOI said 2-3 years+ behind with CPO lasers. - $LITE said they haven't seen anything like Chinese claims in terms of outputs (and no recourse if it's false). Reaffirms moat for CPO related lasers, and no flooding from some shortseller claims on the optical sector. 4. $MTSI said that many customers are approaching them with urgency due to the general supply shortage of indium phosphide DFB lasers. Again, puts Sivers in the that bottleneck, giving them likely more customer demand . Among $COHR ($72.54B), $LITE ($66.57B), $AVGO ($2.13T): It's very special you get one of the public 4 Western CPO leaders at a ~$1.5B MC with $SIVE. Feels like my thesis with both: - The CW bottleneck that I predicted - CW laser chokepoint (where there's only a few CPO players, at least for gen-1) Got validated from earnings, now it's just waiting for the inflection points of next optical architecture shifts.

$LITE earnings are out, very strong earnings: Revenue: $1.01B, +24.5% Q/Q, +109.3% Y/Y growth vs. ~$984.6M Adj. EPS: $3.23 vs. ~$2.95 Gross Margin (non-gaap): 50.4% / Operating margin (non-gaap) 36.6% Q1 FY2027 guidance is probably more important: Revenue: $1.225–1.275B vs. ~$1.16B Adj. EPS: $4.05–4.35 vs. ~$3.63 Operating margin (non-gaap) of 39.5% - 40.5% In terms of notes: Sees: "Increasing demand for ultra-high-power CPO lasers, an initial order for ELS modules" - Great read through on other CPO players like $SIVEF, $COHR, and others. (maybe not AAOI since they're missing out on first-gen deployments) - "Breath of NPO engagements are the first signs that optics are starting to penetrate in-rack connectivity, significantly upping our optical TAM" - Revenue projections "reaching our target model more than a quarter ahead of schedule." Extremely strong earnings as expected, you have revenue going from: $808M -> $1.01B -> $1.25B while operating margin keeps increasing... Just my first impressions. Most important thing is the earnings call coming up soon.

Yes, I'm still bullish on memory like $MU / Samsung. As I said earlier, markets tend to rotate from bottleneck to bottleneck. This week it looks $AXTI to $LITE in the photonics sector is the focus again. The thing is... the primary thing that changed are the stock prices, followed by some narratives + updates sprinkled in here and there. For photonics: > We already knew $COHR / $LITE lasers were completely sold out for the next 2 years during July's drop. > We knew about demand imbalance from $AAOI from last quarter's earnings calls. Nothing deteriorated fundamentally during July's crash, other than listed price after liquidations. Yet tons of people called $AAOI a "scam" when it dropped to $75, or $AXTI a "scam" on its drop to $35... But are bullish again at $140 or $80, when the transciver/InP substrate bottleneck hasn't changed at all, but maybe even got worse... (eg. draft for US ban on new china optical transceivers, scale up demand projections) For Memory: I'm witnessing a lot of retail capitulation, but the same people I'm seeing were mega bullish after $MU signed 16 SCAs and gave exceptional projections a month ago. Or were celebrating Samsung having the highest operating profit in the world. There's updates here and there eg. Rubin Ultra with memory optimizations (which Nvidia strives for every generation), with prices no longer being hiked way above expectations to the extreme. But the operating income relative to MC is just absurd around current prices, especially memory becomes structural. And the demand imbalance should be even worse next year. People tend to capitulate and follow narratives when a sector drops (eg. Helium/LNG back in Iran war), even if the bottleneck or fundamental situation hasn't really changed much (eg. $SPCX Elon earnings call reiterating memory tightness). I can't tell others what to to do: But $AAOI at $140 and $AAOI at $75 are the same company. Samsung at a $1.5T MC and Samsung at a $980B MC are the same company. Just valuations and narratives (often noise) change, and markets rotate from sector to sector.

Wow, there's gem after gem in $AAOI earnings for $SIVE + other laser player readthrough. 1. AAOI not meaningfully participating in CPO first-gen deployments. "We just can’t make enough of them [CPO lasers] to be involved in their current first-generation [CPO] deployments because there’s just not enough capacity. We have to prioritize our ability to make lasers for our own transceivers first" So first-gen CPO laser deployments, might even be narrowed down further for Western players like $SIVE, $LITE, $AVGO, and $COHR. And independent CPO CW laser capacity became more valuable if $AAOI had to turn away more customers... Also remember Trendforce was talking about $AMD singing CW LTAs? $COHR / $LITE have capacity signed with $NVDA ... I thought it would be $AAOI, but they might be out of the equation. $MTSI also doesn't look meaningful with early CPO participation (eg. no mention in ER aside from NPO, and removal from Ayar website). So I wonder who players like $AMD is going to go with for Helios (eg. Sivers + Ayar more likely candidate now)? Btw, this is not bearish AAOI because they have too much demand for optical transceiver business. Just more bullish on the existing few qualified CPO laser names that have capacity. 2. Demand imbalance and bottleneck for InP lasers / optical transceivers. AOI's CEO stated kinda supported that when they said: "The customer demand is 20%-40% higher" than expanded built out capacity. "We are getting this kind of demand from several big customers almost every week. Lasers are the biggest bottleneck right now for the transceiver business" 3. China being years away from having CPO DWDM specification lasers. I covered this earlier when looking at CPO competition from channel checks. But AAOI confirming that China is "easily at least two, three years or even longer from having CPO lasers is incredible tread through on defensibility Western laser positioning in the CPO laser chokepoint. TLDR: - High demand imbalance for CW lasers and optical transceivers. - $AAOI not in first-gen CPO due to capacity constraints (not exactly bearish AAOI because they have too much demand for their optical transciver business, but even better news for the few independent players with capacity coming online like $SIVE) - China years behind in CPO lasers.

Just some TLDR notes on $AAOI earnings: - Expects full qualification of 1.6T products by their hyperscaler customer within next couple of weeks (helpful revenue ramp #2, timelines) - Continues to believe that AOI will have the largest AI DC transceiver production capacity in the US (reiterating ambitions during a time when their competitors might get banned) - Expects facilities toward InP capacity to come online in early 2027 (timeline FYI in terms of further ramp) - Total capacity is approaching 200,000/u per month, EOY 650,000/u per month of 800g/1.6t. EOY 2027, 930,000/u (this is the ramp i want to see) - "increase our manufacturing capacity for our external light source or ELSFP. That's for co-packaged optics or CPO". we anticipate ramping production later this year and into 2027, ultimately culminating in about 400,000 pieces per month in 2028 (need some time to model this into revenue) - "As we have mentioned before, we've been manufacturing lasers internally for many years. This has allowed us to avoid some of the shortages that have affected others in the industry" (vertical integration bull case during CW/EML laser shortages) - We believe that in the future, CPO will continue to drive increased demand for high-power lasers (thesis validation on CPO sector) - "to our long-term objective of returning non-GAAP gross margins to around 40%" - "We ended the second quarter with $508.8 million in total cash equivalents" I need to double check if the ATM finished or not - "our ability to deliver revenue in general, and specifically when it comes to 800G products, is limited by our production capacity right now" "If we could produce more, we could ship more right now" Demand > Supply validation. - "Most of the increased capacity will be in U.S. Even so, let me say that, like I keep emphasizing, that is not good enough for the customer demand. The customer demand is 20%-40% higher." Unholy photonics demand validation across the whole sector, read through for $LITE, $SIVE / $JBL, and others is amazing. - "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AI, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" More optical sector demand validation. - CPO Timelines: "If you're talking about really high volume manufacturer [for CPO market], I would say more like the late Q3 next year" and "We have been working very close with at least five customer" If you care about current earnings (which I'm not really looking at closely) Revenue: $191M vs. $190m EPS: $.06 vs. $.02 TLDR: Extraordinary demand across the laser + optical sector read through. Kinda supporting Lumentum CEO statement that laser shortage is worse than memory shortages. 2027 capacity ramp on track. To map inflection period with timelines, would be around early next year, as stated in their previous earnings call. AAOI has the customers now. Limitation is making enough lasers and transceivers.

$LITE CEO Michael Hurlston at the RAISE Summit warned that the supply gap for InP lasers for AI DCs: Is facing a more severe supply chain crisis than memory. And with Lumentum's 5 InP fabs, shipments would be more than 30%+ below customer demand. This is especially visible with EMLs today but is already expanding to CW, especially as CPO ramps. I've always been a fan of the laser chokepoint + bottleneck from $AAOI, $SIVE, $LITE, and $COHR. And glad this thesis is starting to see validation.

Few earnings TLDRs with my favorite $AXTI and $AMZN: Amazon: - Raised 2026 capex to $220B vs. prior $200B (partly due to higher memory costs, which is bullish on $MU to Samsung) - Even at $220B, Amazon will not have enough capacity to meet all 2026 demand; Jassy expects the same in 2027. - Most incoming 2027 capacity is already reserved, with substantial 2028 capacity also reserved. Mostly read through on upstream semis. $GOOGL, $META, $AMZN, and $MSFT all identified compute shortage. All the narratives a few weeks earlier was "excess compute" from Meta and others + hyperscalers cutting back on spend... All BS. Amazon earnings was very bullish on AI semi trade. AXTI: - AXT to double InP capacity during 2026. Then double again in 2027. This is expected to make AXT "by far the largest indium phosphide producer in the world." - LFG - Q2 rev was $47.6M, the highest quarterly revenue in AXT history (InP revenue reached a record $30.7M, from DC applications.) - Revenue increased 77% sequentially and 164% year over year. - InP revenue-capacity targets: $60M per quarter exiting 2026. - $130M per quarter exiting 2027 That $130m target could be hiked too since management stated they find "whatever ways to increase that capacity expansion" - Management said the reported backlog remains well above $100M, but that number no longer reflects all available demand. "Customer demand continues to outpace supply, no matter how fast we add capacity." 800G/1.6T is driving the current cycle, while NPO/CPO extends it beyond 2027. Also they're targeting 50%-plus gross margin: "We should definitely be targeting a number that begins with a five." China demand more than doubled, and their agreements with Casela, $COHR and $LITE did not materially drive Q2. This is not even considering my projected massive ASP hikes yet as InP substrates get more bottlenecked. TLDR: - Amazon too much compute demands, needs capex to fufill it, so upstream semis go brrr. - AXT world largest InP substrate supplier, high gross margins, expansion, and supply can't keep up with demand. Bullish on demand side from Amazon + capex. Bullish on upstream optical supply chains from too much demand.

$INTC and $AMD to sign CPU LTAs with Chinese customers for AI DCs (Reuters). - Prices of some CPU products have risen more than 40% in China since the start of the year from sources. - Month-on-month increases topping 10% for some products CPUs were already a bottleneck, following CPU ratios due to AI inference... But the broader trend of LTAs seems to be appearing from: - Memory, with $MU, Samsung, $SNDK, and SK Hynix signing DRAM/NAND LTAs. - Photonics, with $LITE, $COHR signing EML LTAs. And recent Trendforce reports that $AMD and hyperscalers are now pursuing CW LTAs. And I'm sure there's many more from MLCCs to all the way to substrates. +1 for the bottleneck investors... hard to be a "bubble that pops" if you have take or pay demand spanning multiple years.

TLDR of Innolight investor relations takeaways: 1. "Overall, 1.6T market demand has not contracted; instead, 800G demand has increased significantly compared with previous expectations" Prob most important takeaway as a whole was 800G demand revision (also longer tail demand). Which is a bullish read through on US transceiver makers like $AAOI, $COHR, $LITE. Lot of new customers like neoclouds, AI model companies, contributing to overall demand rather than just hyperscalers, diversification always a bonus. 2. Innolight said the shortage covers the module supply chain broadly including: - Optical chips. - Electrical chips. - PCBs. - Other module materials From last ER, I think they singled out EMLs and CW optical chips as the most constrained. So Innolight's bottleneck list mention broadened since then. They expect some of the component availability to improve gradually from the second half of 2026 through the first half of 2027. Think a lot of this is already known from earlier though. But just some confirmation + easing timelines (EML is extremely bottlenecked, same with CW, this is probably talking about other components). 3. Innolight said module-production equipment is not the constraint. Equipment lead times remain relatively short. So this isn't really a bottleneck compared to others. 4. The overall proportion of silicon photonics continues to trend upward. Last year it was mainly 800G. This year, some 800G customers are further increasing their silicon-photonics proportion. 1.6T also added some new customers Positive for SiPH penetration eg. $SIVE / $JBL, since this shifts away from EML toward CW. Basically: main surprising takeaway is just 800g demand go brrr. Apart from that just reaffirming bottlenecks/timelines/market speculation.

Morgan Stanley note on CPO today. Key participants include: - $SIVE, $COHR, and $LITE in laser supply - Broadcom and Nvidia in switch platforms - Lightmatter, Ayar Labs, Marvell/Celestial, and POET in optical engines and photonics, - $TSM, $GFS, and $TSEM in silicon photonics foundry capacity I’ve covered all of these before, like Tower Semi. But I’m especially happy that Morgan Stanley validated my research that $SIVE is one of the critical global players in CPO. A small $1.5B laser company next to your two leading $60B+ companies… If you also synthesize Rosenblatt Securities recent note that China laser suppliers were quite far from having CPO lasers. This kinda magnifies importance of the three Western leaders of that laser chokepoint.

Rosenblatt on recent optical sector weakness from $AAOI to $LITE: "Stocks in the Optical sector have traded poorly for the last 1-2 months" due to CPO delay reports and China capacity scares. "We think short sellers... do not actually strongly believe in the thesis." Multiple short sellers told them they will likely close their positions... late July and early August. Further, they say they plan to buy Optical stocks in 2027 for the scale up CPO opportunity. Hilarious report on laser weakness, read is very positive for $SIVEF, $COHR, and others moving forward. I've been long on CPO sector, but seems like institutions want entry points, just a bit later on.

$AXTI signs 3-year wafer deal with $COHR. "Coherent will make a prepayment of $22,288,500 to AXT-Tongmei in exchange for a committed supply capacity." https://t.co/nTkyJSMo96

Photonics is backed by actual revenue numbers and it's an architectural shift championed by $NVDA. Quantum barely has any revenue. $LITE is completely sold out for the next 2 years (per $POET AGM) likely starting into 2029. Lumentum is so strained that they buy CW lasers off competitors (earnings transcript) $COHR is bottlenecked, so they buy EML off Lumentum. Then, $AAOI is coming in with Made-in-America independent CW capacity, are projecting $1.4B/quarterly revenue ending H1 2027 of a stupid $9.3B MC today. So all the CW capacity from independent players who have it now like $AAOI or $SIVE are likely to become scarce resources. Many other hyperscalers have already started LTA discussions (per Trendforce). And players like $AMD are currently talking with players such as $AAOI (Rosenblatt channel checks). Thematically, next 2 years is 9x TAM to US$154B per GS reports, especially with 16x/45x dollar content increase in scale out/scale up. Then there's the overall thematic AI drop from $META, which is widely misunderstood because people conflate what "excess capacity" means. And as UBS mentioned, Meta planning a cloud offering is NOT NEW NEWS. Bloomberg just has a tendency to publish information that causes doom drops across the semi sector like Nvidia export controls a few months back. But I'm familiar with what I'm holding so I'm confident in these numbers playing out. Especially when all the major players are sold out, the fundamentals catch up eventually.

I've been getting a lot of questions about OE Solutions (138080) recently. Here's my research/thoughts so far on it: They're a small Korean optical transceiver company, similar to $AAOI. And they've become one the few EML players in the world (eg. $COHR, $LITE, Mitsubishi, Source, Sumitomo), with scarce 100G EML laser capacity for 800G/1.6T. OE appears to be trying to make the full transceiver, not just the EML. They also have finished ELSFP CPO products, with UHP CW lasers, which is sampling Q3. Likewise, OE also seems to be building out the full ELSFP, rather than selling CW laser dies, so that's more market share. So you can think of it as Korean AAOI but EML instead of CW, and less capacity/qualifications. And playing catch-up to the rest of the world. However in terms of timelines: 1. 23dBm cooled ELSFP samples start in Q3 2026 2. Sales base for 800G, and 2027 1.6T "full force" 3. Late H2 2027, H1 2028 onward probably their ELSFP enters the volume production. And it seems they're working on 200G EML capability from their investor snipper 2025 OE IR snippet referenced “100GBaud EML / 200G PAM". This seems promising given their IP/demos. ELS has just been unveiled recently, sampling starts Q3. 800G/1.6T Optical transceivers are also likely 2027. So this is basically Korea's sovereign photonics player, playing catchup to $LITE, $AAOI, and the bigger players. (Disclosure: I have positions in OE Solutions (138080). This is fundamental research for informational purposes, not financial advice). As for OE solution valuations: 1. Doesn't seem like there's confirmed customers yet for these growth verticals. 2. Probably not many people understood what they're building toward yet. 3. Yields data kinda uncertain 1. Customers: We're actually in a major EML/CW laser shortage, so any independent capacity will be sought after. I personally don't think they'll have a hard time finding customers here. I would assume anything they make might get bought out and would get extra support from Korea. 2. Institutional support: Probably not much since it doesn't meet threshold for many US institution given MC size + KR listing. I also don't think many people understood what they're building yet. 3. Yields/Capacity: OE's disclosed wafer/module utilization is low (i remember was around 31% underutilized off the top of my head), so there's enough material revenue they can generate before they need to spend on capex. I'm also not sure about EML/CW and other yields. Probably need to go ask the company. Is this some random crap co? No. It's been doing optical transceivers stuff for more than 20Y, has R&D in the U.S. and Netherlands. But their entire AI growth vertical seems to happen next year, and hinges mainly around capacity/yields. And I personally think the EML/CW tech is probably worth a lot more than their current MC, if it were an acquisition target. Especially from a larger player that wanted to vertically integrate EML for pluggables and CW lasers for CPO. Markets are probably waiting on more certainty around qualifications after Q3 sampling or earnings projections announcements. TLDR on thoughts: Some of my friends discussed this last year, was probably way too early. Saw it got many comments 2 months ago, still too early. I still think now is early, but later in Q3-Q4 might be more interesting. I personally think it's a lot higher risk than a major CPO player like $SIVE, that's embedded in Ayar, $JBL, $GFS, and many other hyperscaler suppliers. Which also has Win Semi and others de-risking volume ramp. As OE Solutions looks like a new player trying to build out an $AAOI for the optical transceivers but sovereign EML and CW laser production for CPO products. And there's a lot of answered questions around customers + volume ramp, which presents material risk. But if you believe Korea can build out an 800G/1.6T transceiver EML supply chain and ELSFP with CW lasers. With OE Solutions, it might be worth taking a look into. Still researching the company tho, just initial thoughts.

非常感谢中文社区对我最看好股票的投资思路进行的深度剖析！ 总的来说，像 $AAOI 和 $SIVE 这样的激光公司是我个人的最爱，因为它们在拓展营收方面有着极大的想象空间。它们可以不仅仅局限于销售激光器，还能制造完整的光模块 以及各种光引擎或 ELS (外部光源) 组件。 又或者像 $COHR 那样，甚至可以向上游延伸进军衬底制造领域，从而实现垂直整合，并不断提升自身的毛利率和总潜在市场规模 TAM 这其中很大一部分的关键在于要率先精准踩中投资主线，毕竟去年很多人甚至都不觉得“光子学（photonics）”能成为一个真正的热门概念。 而且我认为最会让大多数人感到惊讶的是，我们目前仍处于极其早期的阶段。绝大多数的营收放量（爬坡）要到明年，也就是 2027 年的上半年乃至下半年才会真正开始！ 不过，能看到中文社区大家持续不断的支持，真的让我感觉非常棒。我会尽我所能，不辜负大家给我起的 “白毛股神” 这个称号。

Names like: - $ASX - Sumitomo Electric - $JBL - $VICR - $GFS - $AAOI - AlChip - $TSEM - $FN - Furukawa Electric - $CLS - $NBIS - $NOK - $AMKR - $LITE - $COHR Off the top of my head. So basically, AI exposure trading in the $10-100B range. Likely have compelling ROI right now compared to indexes or $ARM to $MRVL that ran quite a bit? (Just a disclosure, only have financial interest in NBIS/TSEM/AAOI above) I mention a lot of smaller ideas, but that’s just to chase outsized returns. Still feels like many of these have room to go.

$SIVE looks like both a chokepoint and a bottleneck for CPO next year. Keep seeing information published from nontechnical people who miss any nuances. Here’s the reason why: 1. CW lasers are bottlenecked signaled by $LITE earnings. Laser fabs are heavily allocated to EML likely from former $NVDA contracts. -> Sumitomo/Furukawa = bottleneck -> Win Semi = bottleneck $SIVE does fab-lite, so are they a bottleneck? Yes, $SIVE sits in the laser bottleneck since control output supply of CW lasers from Win Semi and other fabs from allocation way early on (CEO stated they working with more capacity from other players as well). Perfect example is Kioxia/Sandisk. $SNDK controls NAND output, so they’re a bottleneck because they control final pricing. Demand exceeding supply from Ayar, Jabil, other pluggable vendors + Nvidia NVLink CPO ecosystem… final laser supply owned by $SIVE makes Sivers a bottleneck. $SIVE is also likely primary/sole source for Jabil, Gen-1 Ayar, $MRVL Celestial, and other hyperscaler asic/merchant CPO routes. So no way to get around it (can’t hot-swap single channel cw lasers with Sivers) 2. $SIVE is a chokepoint over CPO. $NVDA use $COHR, $LITE (which likely sources external cw capacity from Japanese competitors) $AVGO is likely vertically integrated as well. However: the entire ecosystem around it from ASIC programs (Marvell, AlChip, etc) and merchant programs (Ayar, Lightmatter, Lightelligence) Are all likely designed around $SIVE. Ayar for example, likely tried to multi-source with $MTSI / $LITE back in 2022 but their lasers probably couldn’t match the level of Sivers specification with arrays (removed Lumentum / Macom from their supply chain site recently) If there’s no alternative at least for the initial generations (obviously they’re working to multi-source). That makes $SIVE a structural chokepoint to go through for lasers. Even if you look at the 1.6T LRO $JBL designed, they achieved a “drastic moat” with performance built around $SIVE likely sole source. $SIVE is also the foundry level reference laser design for $GFS, which your hyperscalers use like $AMD (likely using Sivers + maybe Ayar for gen1): If every major player, who hasn’t achieved vertical integration (Nvidia/Broadcom) is using Sivers for CPO… That makes them a chokepoint. Just look at the entire CPO $NVDA NVLink ecosystem partners: every single one are all likely using Sivers. And they all use $GFS as well (where Sivers is default reference). So $SIVE is both a chokepoint and bottleneck when CPO really scales up H2 2027, over one of the biggest architectural shifts of all time (near $0 -> $81B or $91B TAM in the next 1 1/2 years from GS research note) This is why I say $SIVE looks like it could be the next $75B $LITE over the next couple years. All of this should play out next year. And it’s still trading less than a company with $50M in purchase agreements that buys Sivers lasers to repackage them.

There's a new $SIVE short seller with 0 clue what they're talking about. 1. $MRVL Celestial is likely buying lasers directly with $SIVE as the laser supplier, not through $POET. As they've been identified as a likely direct customer since 2023. An analogy is if O-Net / Enablence / Sivers, and O-Net worked directly with $SIVE (which they have) but vertically integrated away Enablence. They're still likely buying $SIVE lasers. 2. $SIVE is clearly the likely $AAPL supplier for lasers. I use the term likely, because although markets are 99% sure, the BOM is confidential. The short seller is claiming it's TASC, which I've already identified multiple times as an Apple supplier. But falsely they're conflating two different generations of Apple Watches with photodiodes and lasers for glucose monitoring to say $SIVE is not a supplier. 3. US NASDAQ listing is likely incoming soon after the new board meeting and shareholder vote. Upgrading accounting standards and having immaterial changes doesn't mean anything. 4. Ayar labs hasn't scaled up yet. Ayar specifically listed $SIVE as their primary laser supplier in their website. With their executives going out on statement that they couldn't built their products without $SIVE lasers. Claiming $SIVE isn't shipping volume to Ayar when their CPO products haven't ramped is stupid. 5. There's zero leak around news for listing. Hilarious coincidence and management has always been pursuing NASDAQ listing since last year. Short sellers keep repeating this disinformation to try and profit. 6. I've never seen such hilarious BS around Win Semi volume scaling. High confidence in SpaceX and $AVGO supply chain critical foundry. 7. Using arguments from authority saying they know an engineer and then having them confusing architectural differences between $LITE / $COHR and $SIVE is hilarious. Regardless -distorting financial statements -conflating different gen architectures and timeline NRE - reiterating false accusations to profit off short term sentiment is likely going to see them turn into a long as CPO/Jabil partnerships volume ramp.

Back when $AAOI was ~$20-30 when I went long: I thought $AMZN and $MSFT were qualifying specific optical transceivers for their ASIC programs. Turns out it’s more interchangeable/mass producible. Regardless, glad my thesis on $LITE, $AAOI, Innolight, $COHR, $AXTI played out so well. Keep in mind: everyone on X was saying “scam management” with $AAOI back at $20-30… Or “scam company” with $AXTI at $12. FUD was pretty extreme. Feels like dejavu again… going long on the next CPO architectural shift like $SIVE or Foci? And getting the same comments. We’ll see if my CPO longs play out the same way like Shunsin does with Innolight or $SIVE does with $LITE. Either way all of those are now up hundreds to thousands of percent.

$SIVE is the most compelling CPO exposure stock to me. Despite the volatility. You probably won’t find something like this again until the next architectural shift in photonics years later. Out of the core laser suppliers, they’re all tens of billions? $AAOI = $15B Furukawa = $26B $MTSI = $29B Sumitomo = $59B $COHR = $73B $LITE = $74B Then there’s $SIVE as one of the core CPO laser chokepoints at $2.3B MC. Earnings are usually confirmation of all the little volume ramp hints like Jabil fireside transcripts for 1.6T LRO. And most returns are typically made before, not after official confirmation is just a rule of thumb.

Photonics is nuanced and using ChatGPT/Gemini makes you miss all of it: 1. $SIVE is actually a chokepoint and partially a bottleneck. The reason it's a chokepoint is leading CPO/optical hyperscaler players go through Sivers, likely: Ayar. Celestial. Lightmatter. Lightelligence. Poet. If you take out Sivers, you literally can't make some of their products + delay their roadmap by years. As many are sole/primary source but are heading the direction on multi-source. As for the bottleneck argument: Win Semi is the bottleneck for scaling laser production. But... the nuance is when you have capacity allocated for the next few years. You become part of the bottleneck itself if players fight you for allocation of finished lasers. That's the nuance people miss with capacity allocation dynamics. It's like saying $SNDK is not part of the NAND bottleneck when Kioxia makes all of it. But when Sandisk has the ultimate control of output supply, they become the bottleneck + have all the pricing power. Sivers controls output supply of CW lasers given allocations, and as seen with $LITE earnings, CW laser is currently bottlenecked as everyone seems to be stuck producing EMLs. 2. Like how LLMs always uses em-dashes. You can tell when people use AI when they always use the same "CW is a dumb interchangeable laser" argument or compare "power" specs after conflating different architectures. That's why your "analysts" using AI will get this wrong over and over. There's CW lasers... and then there's a specific architectural design that Sivers achieves with DFB lasers. If you compare power specs with $LITE vs. Sivers, Lumentum wins in isolation. But they're completely different laser architectures. All the leading CPO players like Ayar, chose $SIVE for an architectural reason for high power, low thermal, laser arrays. $JBL 1.6T LRO also made one of the most dramatic moats cited by their fireside chat, using Sivers lasers. If you think CW lasers are interchangeable with Sumitomo/Furukawa, and others. And can be plug-and-play... i don't know what to tell you? Again: $SIVE makes architecturally unique CW lasers for leading CPO players. 3. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this: $SIVE for 2024-2025 has been going through development contracts. People using TTM revenue or former P/S metrics are using completely the wrong metrics, when there's volume ramp in 2027. It's the same with $AAOI which volume ramps in H1 2027. $AEHR which volume ramps after qualification. $LPK that volume ramps after qualification. This is just missing qualification cycles in semiconductors and how to model financials currently. As for the $LITE comparisons (which was also my long last year): $LITE literally started off selling laser dies before acquisition of Cloud Lite and other downstream optical engine components. This is where $SIVE is at today with starting off in the laser chokepoint for CPO: People are modeling laser revenue off very isolated TAM projections. Meanwhile Sivers is targeting M&A to expand revenue for TAM projections. This is not a simple component FAU + ramp valuation modeling over with a Taiwanese company. Since Laser companies like $LITE, $COHR are known to downstream expand to make their lasers more valuable, then vertically integrate (fabs, assembly) afterward. Again, Sivers worked with Ayar and these types of companies before they all became billion dollar companies. I have high conviction knowing they know what to acquire down the ELS/optical engine stack + pluggable transceiver for TAM expansion. It's just annoying when I get people who don't understand the nuances backseat commenting wrong things about my longs. I got the same thing about $AXTI is not a bottleneck! InP isn't needed! China! back at $14. Now it's $140 I got the same thing about $AAOI "is going down 50%!" back at $65. or "AOI management is shady at $30". Now it's $170 I got the "there's nothing new with $SOI" back at $45. Now it's $170. I think I'm one of the few who actually understands the nuances with photonics, since I did call out $LITE, $TSEM, Innolight, $AXTI, $AAOI, $SOI, that outperformed both photonics markets and overall markets over the past year. And now I'm long on $SIVE.

A good looking guy that would mog Clavicular side by side has no impact to any fundamentals. I cut some exposure too in $LITE $COHR like Leopold, last month. But rotated it to a specific optical theme with CPO names like $SIVE / Foci. The entire photonics supply chain is in the start of a massive supercycle and there’s nothing more compelling going long on CPO as an architectural paradigm shift. Markets conflate two companies as the entire theme and sell off anything with it. Great buying opportunity for people who understands the nuance though. I still think there’s upside for Lumentum and $COHR, just less likely to double at current prices as fast if you’re going shares only.

When I see comments like this (and there are a lot) from retail investors: I immediately think they lack the technical depth. I'll walk through each one from $SIVE to $LPK: 1. Photonics TAM goes from $14B -> $154B In just two years time, and it's likely going to keep scaling past 2030 as it's the next generation architecture of choice. It's not going away in 1 year. It's not going away in 3 years, which is why $LITE premiums keep going higher since they're backlogged into 2028. $SIVE supplies CW lasers and is highly tethered to CPO and now pluggable transcivers for 1.6T and 3.2... For expected companies like $JBL, Ayar, Lightmatter, Lightelligence, $POET, $MRVL Celestial, and $AMD. This isn't a "trade", it's the core chokepoint and IP holder for the next generation of photonics. And it's a comfortable hold for the next few years as they scale to become the next $LITE. The risk I personally see (since they're already qualified with so many players), it's mainly how much TAM they can capture of the overall optical supercycle. (And potential risks with Win Semi volume ramp, but Win is massive so I can sleep tightly there). As just supplying lasers isn't enough to justify valuation. It's TAM expansion downward into making the entire ELS or entire pluggable transceiver that makes these laser companies so valuable. Then afterward, they can vertically integrating upward for gross margin expansion upward like $COHR into doing the laser fabs or even substrate level. And that in my view is a very asymmetric risk/reward ratio as we've already seen this done with $LITE as they went from $2B to $80B. 2. $LPK - Is the purest exposure, without the messy financials of SKC Absolics, as the next advanced packaging shift for glass substrates. Almost every single major semi company from $INTC to Samsung are adopting glass substrates. $LPK is basically $ASML of this chokepoint, since they supply to ~80% of the global players currently. Yes, there's "trade cycles" for equipment suppliers like $ASML, where if there's more foundry capex, ASML scales up. But if there's downturns, these tend to perform poorly, and don't capture all the volume ramp that happens after. However, if the MC is $650m and they're making $100-200M, revenue per costumer volume ramped, the amount they make from the glass substrate cycle will likely exceed current valuations. And they'll have baseline fundamentals (as more companies adopt the packaging shift), that keeps their valuation up. It's just a waiting game for volume ramp at this point. 3. $AAOI - This is literally $INTC but for America + Photonics. It's like saying Intel is not a long term investment. Guess where all your optical transcivers are made? China. Thailand. Malaysia. If you look at Innolight, Eoptolink, $FN, and others. AOI is building the largest Made in America supply chains for both CW laser fab, as well as 800g, 1.6T assembly. Yes, there are pluggable cycle ups and downs to this as well. There's going to be a wave for 1.6T next year, then CPO cannibalizes pluggables down the road. But since they make the entire supply chain in house, they have extreme optionality for other segments. And like $NVDA older gen-GPUs, there's going to be sovereign DC requirements for older gen pluggables from names like $AAOI. It's likely going to keep rising as it hits that $400m+/month revenue target H2 2026. There's just a lot of different short term volatility along the way like the $600m dilution. 4. $IQE - ??? It's one of the most important players in the Western word for epiwafers. $MTSI went out of their way to pay off IQE's debt because they can't have them going under. $IQE is also supplying to $LITE. The world is currently bottlenecked both on the epiwafer level from Landmark comments and InP substrate levels. Their financials were track but the raw book value, and value they hold to the entire Western supply chain... completely justifies their valuation. And other optical companies will not let their core upstream supply chain go under. As these tens of millions worth of materials would screw up tens of billions worth of downstream products. Again photonics is the next generation architecture required to scale AI. It's not Quantum where it's just "In development". It's literally here and the architecture of choice by $NVDA. I would not be surprised if all of these are a lot higher in 3-4 years time. People who think it's one and done in 3 months time "only because I mentioned it" don't know what they're talking about. Institutions would have bought up the name eventually (like Point 72 on $IQE) and retail would only find out after their valuations are 600% higher. Should really do the research before adding comments like these: These are all forward growth companies that require in-depth supply chain knowledge.

People wonder why I'm focusing on non-US markets recently. Why? CPO is my #1 thematic long. Markets don't know yet, the sudden paradigm shift in photonics... I was one of the only to frontrun the current supercycle in 2025 w/ $AAOI @ ~$30, $LITE ~$300s, and $AXTI at ~$13 on X.... With the actual receipts and thesis that others can't show. CPO goes from ~$0. To $91 Billion TAM opportunity. In the next 1 1/2 years from GS research. While overall optical market reaches $154B. Many players that had little exposure to the current photonics cycle at all: -> In Europe with high-end lasers design like $SIVE or $SOI with substrates. -> In Taiwan with Foci (3363), Nextronics (8147), Shunsin (6451) and others for optical components and foundries. -> In Japan with laser mass production, substrates, and chemicals. Are suddenly the new dominant players for CPO. As for US players, there's not much exposure. But the existing ones like $LITE, $COHR still get upside from CPO as that's their new growth vector. My contrarian thought process on current players: Is that most of their valuation is priced in huge legacy pluggable revenue that will inevitably face cannibalization over time, so re-rating potential is less unless someone uses leverage. A lot of these new purer play CPO names go from 0 to 100 extremely quickly one mass production starts H2 2026 for scale out (as a revenue bridge) into H2 2027 for scale up (massive growth driver). Markets usually price things in 8-12 months ahead of time too... I have high conviction thematically in my supply chain research despite any market volatility leading up until then.

Random CPO related names I like: - $SIVE - Foci (3363) - $TSEM - Browave (3163) - PCL (4977) - $AXTI - Msscorps (6830) - $IQE - Shunsin (6451) - Furukawa Electric (5801) - $MTSI - Nextronics (8417) - $LITE - $COHR - FitTech (6706) - $GFS - $ASX - LandMark (3081) - $SOI Disclosure: I own most, not all though.

Every day it's like this on repeat with $SIVE, it's like dejavu lol. Makes sense why Sivers is getting listed on Nasdaq soon instead of staying in local markets. New local hit piece on their own frontier company happens every market open, stock drops 10%: -> "CPO and the CW lasers is nothing new" -> "Sivers is going up against well funded $LITE and $COHR and will lose because of capital" -> "They had to dilute 2.5% to get listed on Nasdaq" -> "Delayed annual report is sketchy" (to get listed on Nasdaq) -> $SIVE is not big enough to capitalize on $JBL relationship and scale. Local Swedish folks end up selling. Western investors/funds end up acquiring the float. Better for the West to own the company before CPO ramp starts. Creating a frontier company purely from Sweden seems hopeless given local culture.

I'm still laughing how much Swedish hate their own frontier companies so much. That they write hit pieces every day on $SIVE. This one was entertaining: Local journalists show up to an empty $SIVE administrative building uninvited. Because they can't fathom the CEO is in Silicon Valley or design team is working on US Gov CHIPS act dev in the US. And because there weren't many cars parked outside + CFO wouldn't take questions about secretive hyperscaler deal financials. They wrote a random negative hit piece. By repeating "There are several who make lasers like these and Sivers are far from alone". Several like $LITE, $COHR, $60B+ companies. and reported earlier that "CPO is nothing special, it's been around for years." While GS projects CPO going from $1B -> $91B TAM over the next two years. Even put "Plans" in quotation marks because they didn't think Sivers is supplying lasers to $JBL 1.6T LRO. IMO, $SIVE ends up as a $10B+ company next year, especially if they follow what $LITE / $COHR did with downstream IP integration to capture more of CPO module BOM. Just don't think Swedish people understand hyperscaler supply chains, concept of forward growth, or the fact that employee count doesn't equate to revenue. Transfer of control from local Swedish -> West is always appreciated, as this was a majority owned local retail company before.

$COHR earnings note: Coherent's CEO basically reaffirmed GS research note about CPO being a massive revenue driver: Transcript: “One of the most important long-term growth opportunities for Coherent” In terms of timeline implications on $SIVE, $LITE, and other CPO adjacent names, just confirms timelines: "Initial scale-out CPO revenue is expected to begin in the second half of calendar 2026, with scale-up CPO revenue following in the second half of calendar 2027" "Coherent is working with multiple other customers and expects CPO solutions to be widely adopted." - This also reaffirmed adoption level. Scale-up CPO is the biggest value driver across the board that happens start of H2 next year. We're still in H1 2026 entering H2 2026. So this is the ideal time to frontrun CPO names before anything hits the balance sheet. This is known as "alpha"... pricing in things market fully don't know yet by looking at financials. Markets are typically forward looking 8-12 months... So if massive volume ramp happens July 2027 (might get pushed forward again)... And it's May 2026, a lot of that gets priced in between July 2026 and July 2027... between volume agreements H2 2026, and pre-production ramp H1 2027. 2 months before markets price in the largest volume drivers is what I call "frontrunning" the next CPO Supercycle. We know it's coming. Just a matter of waiting.