Coherent's booked InP laser capacity gives it a potential path into Nvidia's CPO expansion. Nvidia wants optical-engine capacity up 15x by mid-2027 and holds laser purchase commitments and capacity rights from its $2B Coherent investment. Coherent says fiscal 2027 is essentially booked and customers are reserving into 2028, but most near-term orders are for pluggables and other products; scale-up CPO revenue starts only in H2 2027. Neither company has sized Nvidia's rights. x.com 

Coherent should benefit as the shift from copper to light inside AI data centers accelerates, with co-packaged optics now in production and near-packaged optics pulling revenue forward. Nvidia's Spectrum-X Photonics switch is in full production, and TrendForce says CPO has entered mass production. Coherent CEO Jim Anderson says CPO and NPO engagement jumped in the past three to six months, nearly every large customer has a project, and its content per socket is similar in either design. x.com 

Applied Optoelectronics has a better chance than Coherent of delivering a 300-400 mW laser with tolerable RIN and linewidth. Its transceiver capacity ramp is also larger and is not gated by Sumitomo's 6-inch InP wafers. Long AAOI against short COHR is an unnecessarily dangerous pair trade idea. x.com 

Coherent has a dated revenue catalyst: its PhotonLink is expected to start ramping in Q4 2026, with anchor customers secured for CPO and NPO. The median analyst target is $420. x.com  x.com 

Indium phosphide laser capacity, not demand, now caps how fast 1.6T optics ship, and Coherent owns its laser fabs and grows its own substrate. That makes the InP squeeze Goldman flags through 2027 work in its favor. Record Q4 revenue of $2.05 billion rose 34% as six-inch InP wafers ramped, with 40.2% non-GAAP gross margin and 42%+ guided, at a 0.92 PEG. The risk: with about $3.55 billion of debt and cash burn, it can't absorb a 1.6T ramp slip; six-inch yield at volume is the test. x.com 

Applied Optoelectronics, Lumentum and Coherent face share losses at US hyperscalers to Innolight. Channel checks favor Innolight gaining share in Q2 2026, at the expense of those three. Per @poezhao0605, a $7B Hong Kong IPO, the largest in years and upsized from $5B on strong demand, has cleared its listing hearing. x.com 

Coherent is a tactical buy because growth and margins should accelerate once its 6-inch production ramps, yield challenges notwithstanding. The quarter disappointed on a slower 2x InP ramp and slow margin progress toward 42%, with Coherent still reliant on Lumentum's lasers. Over the next 4-8 quarters it can catch up in simpler CW lasers, with OCS and CPO the real upside. Lumentum, growing about 90% versus Coherent's 20%, remains the preferred concentrated long-term AI-optics bet. x.com 

Coherent's 6-inch substrate access, yields and margin concerns look mostly like timing issues in the optical buildout. Coherent is now one of the preferred ways to gain exposure and should participate meaningfully, despite those constraints. x.com 

Lumentum and Coherent face a threat from microLED optics, which could replace laser optics with 20x less power and no temperature sensitivity by late 2027. The use case is short-reach, high-volume links under 30 meters. The copper versus optics debate is a distraction, since every AI cluster needs both and Credo now does both while Applied Optoelectronics handles long-haul; the bigger question is what microLED does to laser makers. x.com  x.com 

Coherent has the most substance in the optical group and the only real base on its chart, while the sector's sell-off is macro, not fundamental. At about 23x 2027 estimates it looks mispriced, and it is the only company holding 6-inch InP, silicon photonics, OCS and CPO engines at once. It alone has stopped making lows. Rate-hike pricing and a 5.04% 10-year are still compressing optical multiples, so staged, defined-risk entries beat full commitments; a daily close below 264 invalidates it. … Show more