Yep, I'm still bullish on Win. They're coming online with rare independent capacity for InP lasers (we know from Sivers) and maybe PiC foundry services (presentation slides) for AI DCs, during a time of a bottleneck. And my guess is its optical foundry might drive surprising revenue growth 2027 onward.

Today I'm writing a weekend guide on how to do DD when shorting $NBIS: First, you look at hyperscaler earnings for AI cloud read through: > $GOOGL: reports record AI cloud demand + backlog + margin increases from earnings > $AMZN: reports record AI Cloud demand + backlog + margin increases from earnings > $META: reports higher than expected prices for available capacity from earnings. Now, time to look at Nebius: -> $NBIS: Growing hundreds of percent to $7-9B ARR by Q4. Growing margins, and guided 4GW+ contracted power. -> Sees Uber/Waymo splitting, putting more focus on Avride -> Sees Clickhouse growing rapidly every quarter. Okay looks bad! But next, you need a hedge? -> Wow! A $NIKE brand executive, after the stock dropped 75% over the past 5 years, went to $LULU to save that brand next? Lululemon seems good. Conclusion: Short Nebius and go long on $LULU

There we go, White House finally invests in more breath in critical minerals/materials. Amazing policy move, as a TLDR: - $WWR receives $25M (graphite) - $SRL (ASX) receives $400M (Scandium) - $FEAM receives $8M (Boron) - $HREE receives $4.8M (magnet rare earths) out of the public companies. With more private investments from $150 million into Niron Magnetics or $85 million into Standard Bauxite. It's literally spare change to the US gov, for ENORMOUS amount of downstream applications. More should be done with funding amounts to accelerate development and derisk supply chains (don't own any of the above, just support the policy move), but great announcement.

Some more TLDR takeaways from $AAOI ER: - They also flagged DSP and TIA bottlenecks, which is a positive industry read through for names like $MXL, then $SMTC and $MTSI. - For revenue growth, they're expecting more than $500 million revenue Q4, which is absurd growth. For reference: Q2: $191.9M Q3: ~$255M-$290M Q4: $500M+ By mid-2027: ~$1.41B quarterly revenue run-rate Always impressed by the revenue ramp from some of these optical players.

Unitree is being listed this month, and is expected to open around a $30B valuation (pre-IPO perps) from ~$5.6B -> $9B now. Given Agility is valued at $2.5B premoney with $CCXI, I’m just watching what happens to the robotics sector and especially Agility, when Unitree goes public. I’ve already laid down my thesis with humanoids and I’m personally waiting for it to play out.

Uhh I don’t want $SIVE to be acquired given how attractive their laser assets are. Since I see potential for them end up as the next $LITE. Honestly carving out OE solutions complete optical transceiver business or something similar that’s distressed from a private startup might be interesting. My guess is it comes after Nasdaq listing within next few quarters or so. I think the CEO knows what to do, so I’m just tagging along for the ride.

For now yes, because Lumilens has a direct hyperscaler customer and multi-billion dollar purchase agreements. While $SIVE is an upstream laser supplier. Sivers needs to work its way downstream to capture more TAM with selling optical engines, ELS, or complete optical transceivers like $LITE did after M&A eg. Cloud Light. My opinion is that it’s easier to move downstream than upstream as you seen with the limited amount of qualified laser suppliers out there.

Earlier today, optical interconnect company Lumilens "emerges from stealth" at a $5.5B valuation, after raising $700m. Just as a recap from $POET / $SIVE Linkedin OSINT mapping I shared earlier, Lumilens was supplying a top 3 hyperscaler customer. So we got confirmation of that a month later, along with the material figure that Lumilens has a "multi-billion-dollar customer agreement". And just for reference, $POET has existing contracts with Lumilens ($50m purchase order, up to $500m) + contracts with $SIVE (depending on product lines). I actually took tiny positions in POET again after reading this news, since it finally gives them visibility into extremely well funded hyperscaler suppliers (on top of Poet's really large balance sheet). But TLDR: > Lumilens around similar (or even higher) valuations as Lightmatter/Ayar, bigger than markets thought with hyperscaler customers. > nice read through upstream on $POET (derisking) / $SIVE. > Great for optical valuations in general, seeing a company go to $5.5B in 2 years.

I literally and legally can't give you advice. I'm personally long and still bullish on $AXTI since I don't think InP substrate demand imbalance will be going anywhere over the next 2-3 years. And my InP substrate bottleneck thesis + AI buildout disruption got validated midway through the year from Reuters to other epiwafer earnings calls. You do you

I'm extremely bullish on $AAOI, it's one of my top holdings? But there's an unholy amount of things to unpack when AOI said they're not participating in first-gen CPO deployments because there's not enough capacity. 1. Independent CW DFB capacity, even less than markets thought. 2. Qualified CPO laser players, even less than markets thought. 3. I remember Rosenblatt thought $AAOI would be $AMD's first CPO customer, but might not be the case anymore... And since $LITE and $COHR are in camp $NVDA and sold out for next 2 years... Some other CPO players might be more valuable than others think.

$MTSI earnings transcript: "Customers are coming to us with urgency due to the general supply shortage of indium phosphide DFB lasers" Emphasis on "Urgency", CW "DFB lasers", "coming to us". CW DFB names, such as like $SIVE and $LITE should be happy to hear about this laser bottleneck getting validated.

$LITE CEO said even as their 5 InP laser fabs come online, shipments would be 30%+ below customer demand. (and worse than the current memory shortage) $AAOI said something similiar with a 20-40% figure. My guess is that InP substrates and lasers both will be one of the most severe bottlenecks in 2027. Which is why I place a lot of value on any independent capacity that comes online whether it's $SIVE with Win or $AAOI.

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.

$AAOI is an end of H1 2027 volume ramp player for me, since around then is when they hit inflection point of $471m/month revenue projections. Recent drafted ban on new optical transceivers coming from Innolight and others, increase weight on players like AAOI, $SIVE / $JBL, $LITE, $COHR for their 1.6T+ programs as well. Especially if finalized in 2026. Since there's likely going to be price hikes, and more demand concentration over capacity from the select few Western players.

The unexpected thing of the week... Was $AEVA becoming a CPO/NPO optical source player. For background: $SIVE is viewed as the high confidence CW DFB laser supplier to Aeva (which is known for lidar). Today, Aeva reacted with +18.26% AH on news that they signed a JDA with an optical engine player for deployment at a major hyperscaler in H2 2027, production ramp 2028. "Optical Connectivity will leverage that foundation along with Aeva’s EXISTING high-volume manufacturing and foundry supply chain" for: - ELSFP (similar to O-Net/Enablence + $SIVE), with Sivers as the likely CW laser + potential amplifier supplier - On-chip integrated light source (likely $SIVE DFB + Aeva PIC on the architecture/integration side) TLDR: New TAM and a hyperscaler programs for Aeva for CPO/NPO, positive read through for upstream suppliers like $SIVE.

Funniest callout of the year from $VIAV on CPO timelines: "Well, there's been a lot of industry talk [about delays], like, 'Oh, because the yield is going to be slower.' That's all nonsense. CPO and all that thing is moving forward" They stated that Yes there's always issues, but the process is being improved and things are getting better. To follow up on that, the CEO stated: - Viavi has POs for CPO-testing activity - “We’re already getting [CPO revenue] this quarter, and probably in December it will start accelerating.” On a side note, they also stated, 1.6T is "ramping very quickly", should reach parity with 800g next year, and signaled longer tail for 800g demand. TLDR: Seeing CPO test revenues hit for $VIAV to $FORM around now. Nvidia also stated switch-side CPO for scale out and scale across has entered mass production earlier. As for scale up timelines, early production should be H2 2027 for some players, with other CPO players Ayar stating 2028 is the volume inflection period. Basically, all the timelines seem to be the same as before and revenue is starting to hit testing players first.

SK Hynix, $MU , and Samsung have sold out of 2027 capacity for DRAM/HBM. $SNDK, Samsung, Micron current annual NAND capacity has been sold out, with Kioxia and SK Hynix expected to finalize allocations by August 2026. - Customers are being allocated only 60–70% of the volumes they initially requested - industry insiders pointed out that 2027 will enter the most severe moment of memory shortage - Allocation amounts are mostly decided, but final shipment pricing will be determined closer to delivery Source: Digitimes, citing industry sources. Hard to see those memory "oversupply" claims in early-mid 2027 when they're all sold out of capacity already.

$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.