Why $ALMU, $POET, and $AAOI are all flying today and is the NEW bottleneck:

Everyone’s asking why photonics is melting up.

Let me connect the dots.

Nvidia just committed $2 BILLION each into Lumentum and Coherent to secure the AI photonics supply chain.

Read that again.

$NVDA isn’t betting on more GPUs. They’re betting on the pipe that carries the data BETWEEN the GPUs.

Here’s what Wall Street is just now figuring out:

1. You can stack 100,000 H100s in a rack

2. But if the optical interconnects can’t move data fast enough, your compute is bottlenecked

3. 800G → 1.6T → 3.2T transceivers are the NEW chokepoint

$AAOI isn’t up 22% on hype. It’s up 22% because they just beat Q4 earnings AND guided Q1 2026 above estimates.

Management is calling $1B+ revenue in 2026 as 800G/1.6T production scales. This is revenue acceleration meeting an Nvidia-validated sector.

$POET is up 12% because their optical interposer solves the ASSEMBLY bottleneck everyone’s ignoring. Scaling 1.6T/3.2T transceivers isn’t just a chip problem, it’s a packaging problem.

$POET owns that solution. Revenue ramp expected H2 2026.

$ALMU is the asymmetric micro-cap play. No direct Nvidia contract. But they’re integrating III-V materials on silicon for AI sensing and quantum applications, exactly the architecture photonics is scaling toward. $38.6M cash. DoD-compliant domestic production. Nasdaq flagged it as high upside.

When $NVDA writes a $4B check into your sector, the whole neighborhood moves.
The pattern here is identical to what happened in power infrastructure.
Everyone was buying GPUs.

Then they realized you can’t run GPUs without power.

Now everyone’s buying compute. And they’re realizing you can’t scale compute without photonics.

Bandwidth is the NEW bottleneck.

> $AAOI is the revenue play.
> $POET is the infrastructure play.
> $ALMU is the asymmetric lottery ticket.

Three different risk profiles.
One macro thesis.

Photonics is the next layer of the AI buildout.

And $NVDA just told you exactly where they’re putting their money.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​