James Altucher
Investor & Author, Technology & Markets
Kopin, with partner SBLX, may have cracked MicroLED-based optical interconnects, the holy grail for interconnects, which are the main bottleneck in AI data centers. No other public company has announced one, and Kopin builds on MicroLED products it developed for the US Army. Copper-interconnect leader Credo is worth about $20 billion and just paid $750M for DustPhotonics, while Kopin is about $500M and SBLX under $50M in what is described as a $100B industry. x.com x.com
Credo's leading AEC position and vertical integration keep its optics thesis bullish despite SpaceX moving away from 1.6T AECs. That shift is a genuine risk, but xAI has been in Credo's AEC ecosystem the longest, which could support ZeroFlap optics and its telemetry software. Credo's VCSEL-based ALCs were still ramping toward 2027, giving it another route as customers move to transceivers. x.com x.com x.com
Credo's MicroVCSEL offers upside that does not appear priced in. Its copper and optics exposure, a SpaceX tailwind and fundamentals that look too good for its current valuation make it one of the tidiest AI infrastructure investments. x.com
Kopin is a name to watch from the sidelines because dilution risk outweighs its promising technology for now. Q2 revenue rose 51% to $12.7M, but core product revenue was flat at $7.6M; the gain came from $5.1M in grants and partner-funded R&D. Excluding investment gains and a tax benefit, it runs about a $3.5M operating loss, with $24.3M usable cash and $26M tied up in the BlueRadios appeal bond. Positive free cash flow is targeted for Q4 2026; any ramp snag raises the odds of a share sale. … Show more
Credo is a solid company whose low-power interconnects between AI servers become more necessary as AI compute grows. If microLED technology actually lands and improves optical module efficiency and density, its moat could get stronger. Filling the chart gap, or even a pullback to the 200-day moving average, would be a good buying opportunity, though Astera Labs was preferred when the two were compared. x.com x.com
MicroLED's poor prospects and growing expert enthusiasm for VCSEL could put ams OSRAM on more investors' radars. An ams OSRAM optical-interconnect executive says a 1.6T active linear cable was demonstrated using the company's micro-emitter engine with Credo's help, and their short-reach micro-optics partnership continues. x.com x.com x.com
Astera Labs looks relatively expensive because similarly fast-growing AI infrastructure names trade at much lower multiples. Broadcom and Nvidia are at 14x, Credo at 15x and Lumentum at 18x; comparable peers look 50-80% cheaper. Astera is a great company and not necessarily expensive in absolute terms. Its roughly 2x multiple over Credo may persist, but the setup looks harder; with no valuation support, it could fall 50% if weakness continues. x.com x.com x.com x.com
These ten companies span every layer of AI capex, which Goldman sees surging to $1.2 trillion in 2027, so each should make money. Credo, Broadcom, Micron, Nvidia, TSMC, AMD and Amkor cover connectivity, custom chips, memory, GPUs, foundry and packaging; Broadcom expects AI revenue of about $115B in fiscal 2027. Vistra supplies power under 20-year nuclear contracts. IREN and Nebius rent AI compute, with Nebius targeting $7-9B run-rate revenue by year end. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com … Show more
Financing announcements point to more accelerator demand, supporting semiconductors. About $200bn in announced Meta, Anthropic/Broadcom and SpaceX/Nvidia financing likely drives $400bn in XPU purchases. Data centers burn cash until lit, then cash flow 20-40% annually; AI spend rising from 0.1% to 0.5-1% of current payroll could balance the buildout if agents replace roles. Sustainable token demand is the bet, but smaller local models are the bigger risk, though not an immediate concern. x.com … Show more
Credo trades at 15-18x forward earnings despite 200%-plus accelerating growth because the market treats it as legacy connectivity while its TAM has multiplied. It is taking scale-out share from copper and fiber and is poised for scale-up, and its ALCs match copper's reliability at half the power of laser optics. New products like ZF Optics and OmniConnect CXL memory links, which management expects at $1,000 per GPU, could add about $1B on 1M GPUs, versus $1.3B of mostly AEC revenue this year. … Show more
Sivers is less exposed to tighter AI financing because its 700M SEK raise funds a buildout largely reliant on external foundries. It is qualifying with Ayar, Jabil, GlobalFoundries and O-Net for potential tier-one hyperscaler pluggable, CPO and NPO deployments. Higher rates may strain neoclouds needing billions for GPUs, but optical content and aggregate demand should still rise even if hyperscaler AI capex falls, especially as new players start qualification. x.com
