Serenity

AI/Semi Supply Chain Analyst ex. RISC-V FDN, AI research scientist;

AI/Semi Supply Chain Analyst ex. RISC-V FDN, AI research scientist;

Serenity

Just some notes on $POET Tech(POET.US) AGM and read through on optical markets:

- "The top three laser suppliers control 68% of the market, and they’re completely sold out for the next two years"

$Lumentum(LITE.US) CEO said into 2028, so POET implicitly confirms laser shortage is going into 2029 now.

- NRE with a new customer, building on POET’s interposer for high-power external light source.

This is high confidence $SIVE as laser supplier given the Sept 29, 2025 PR on ELS, and new customer qualification would be material for revenue if it goes into volume ramp.

- Poet expects Lumilens commercial agreement to scale to over $500 million over the next 5 years.

Lumilens claimed a top-3 hyperscaler was their initial customer (Linkedin OSINT)

- $830M cash on hand on balance sheet (this is more for Poet fundamentals).

- "The entire optical components industry today is facing a severe shortage of critical components."

Reaffirming what we know already regarding optical bottlenecks.

- "Production ramp in the second half of 2026 this year."

Just production timelines H2.

In terms of $POET Tech(POET.US) volumes:

- existing capacity around 1 million optical engines per year

- projected demand exiting 2027 around 1 million optical engines per month

- roughly 10x capacity expansion

I don't own Poet, but if management delivers on these projections it directionally looks very positive.

However something to note is that unlike other suppliers that have named hyperscaler customers to to back up capacity revenues like $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US): $POET Tech(POET.US) seems more questionable.

But this does look like a very positive outlook for $POET Tech(POET.US) if they match projections.

Honestly this decade from 2020-2030 might be the most goated in human history.

- Scaling massive reusable rockets for orbital compute with $Rocket Lab(RKLB.US) to $SpaceX(SPCX.US).

- on the cusp of ASI and recursive learning with Anthropic and OpenAI

- Backflipping Boston Dynamics and Unitree humanoids to replace the human workforce

- Star Wars laser beams from $EOS.ASX to AI DC lasers like $Lumentum(LITE.US).

- Waymo and $Tesla(TSLA.US) self driving cars everywhere in urban cities

- and we get industry Quantum commercialization end of decade

This is kinda crazy to be an investor in this timeframe. Feels like every movie from the Star Wars Death Star to Skynet is coming to life.

What’s next?

WSJ: “China Has Matched Anthropic in Cybersecurity, Resetting AI Race”

China’s Zhipu AI, has matched

Anthropic’s Mythos in certain benchmarks, such as exploiting cybersecurity bugs.

Well, that’s not good.

Instead of blaming the administration which did the correct thing…

Anthropic’s clearly at fault for not setting enough guardrails to prevent distillation.

Even before Fable release there were a lot of rumors that China had backdoors to distill it.

Part of it is the trillions of capex to accelerate the AI moat.

And the second part is not handing that work over on a silver platter for millions in API calls.

$SpaceX(SPCX.US) / Elon Musk acquires Mesh, an optical networking startup.

Which is working on 1.6T OSFP (pluggable).

It’s seems they own the optical engine/packaging side of things, but likely sources CW DFB lasers off merchant companies.

$SIVE is one of the more startup friendly plausible merchant suppliers as seen with Ayar to $POET Tech(POET.US)?

Maybe $Lumentum(LITE.US) and $Macom Tech(MTSI.US) that were have a little history too, but less so.

Regardless it’s very positive a lot of startups recently like Celestial have been acquired by Marvell.

For both merchant laser supplier revenue (working with startups -> having hyperscalers like SpaceX drive revenue after being designed in already).

As well as valuations from M&A desirability.

Goes to show how optical interconnects is the right direction if Elon Musk is directly buying these companies.

Brooo, OpenAI is back and they're releasing their new model GPT-5.6 Sol.

With their benchmarks, OpenAI claims:

- Sol Ultra beats Mythos 5 and mogs it for coding/workflow.

- And is better for bio/cybersecurity too.

Pretty bullish on OpenAI again if they leapfrogged Anthropic.

“What matters is not the eggs, it is the Goose itself”

SoftBank probably down -13.5% today

after markets saw this investor presentation today.

Also the OpenAI IPO possible 2027 delay cause Altman wanted a $1T valuation might have been a small cause…

Looks like Power Semis are already starting price hikes.

Which is bullish thematically for US power semi trade from $Alpha &Omega(AOSL.US) to $Power Integrations(POWI.US), before the 800V DC shift fully hits.

China's Yangjie Technology, announced a 2nd price increase this year, raising prices across its full product range by 10%-15%, July 1.

Chongqing China Resources Micro, Silan Microelectronics, and NCE Power also price hiked.

“Demand is playing a larger role than costs in the latest round of price increases” from AI DCs, to energy systems, and new EVs.

Another potential beneficiary is the upstream material companies that make these:

- nonferrous metals like copper and tin.

-Plastic molding compounds

- chemicals, and packaging consumables

“Nearly all major Chinese power semiconductor makers have raised prices in 2026.” (Digitimes)

So positive read through on power semi adjacent (reduce China-driven price pressure + better pricing + demand validation)

Feels like the only thing that hasn’t crashed…

Is memory like $Micron Tech(MU.US), indexes, or large cap semis like Intel so far.

- Photonics from $AXT(AXTI.US) to $SIVE down 40%.

- Space from $AST SpaceMobile(ASTS.US) and $Rocket Lab(RKLB.US) down 40% 1M.

- Popular AI names like $Palantir Tech(PLTR.US) is down ~35% YTD.

- Software like $Salesforce(CRM.US) down -40%.

- Bitcoin sub <60k, Ethereum sub <$16k.

Not a fun time with a hawkish fed narrative and potential rate hikes.

However this does sorta feel overshot due to margin liquidations on less liquid assets compared to mega caps.

But we’ll see what happens, usually fundamentals override liquidity shock in the longer run.

I’m still personally bullish on the AI buildout + upstream AI capex beneficiaries, but 1-2 potential rate hikes certainly don’t help.

Very interesting statement today: $Micron Tech(MU.US) CEO predicts a multi-decade memory demand cycle driven by humanoid robots.

"Humanoid robots, he says, will require roughly ten times more memory than today’s Level 2+ autonomous vehicles."

"And that demand wave is set to begin before the decade is out."

Something as well as was "Over time, we expect the value of on-device AI combined with pent-up unit replacement demand to drive memory demand growth"

Which is also another trend (Apple Intelligence is currently dog, but I'm sure we'll see innovations with localized/edge AI).

Feels like all the industry leaders from $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) Chairman, $Tesla(TSLA.US) Elon Musk, to $Micron Tech(MU.US) CEO see humanoids as the next major trend so physical AI is probably next.

I wonder if the world is going to have enough memory. Or if we'll see enough breakthroughs to shrink memory usage.

Today, Anthropic has directly accused the $Alibaba(BABA.US) Qwen AI lab of distilling its frontier AI models.

By creating thousands of fake accounts and over 28.8 million exchanges.

Feels like this is kind of known by now... but there's been no real penalties enforced yet.

We'll see what happens.

Fun new information discovery from Poet OSINT community:

Seems likely that $POET Tech(POET.US) / $SIVE are going to power a Top-3 hyperscaler (either Amazon, Microsoft, Google).

Given a Linkedin update from Ankur Singla (CEO of Lumilens).

Who stated their customer is one of the top 3 hyperscalers with their post focusing on CPO/NPO.

With that clue, seems more likely the Sivers CW DFB light source path over other EML suppliers given it's CPO Scale Out/NPO.

If you don't remember, Sivers is the laser supplier to Poet. And Poet has purchase agreements with Lumilens.

Always fun to find major potential breadcrumbs in the wild before they're officially confirmed. (Disclosure, long Sive)

I find it interesting that the degens on $Reddit(RDDT.US) are starting a viral campaign to save Wendy’s ( $Wendys(WEN.US) ).

The US fast food burger chain.

And the stock price is now up 20% overnight.

Just for background: Wendy’s is a popular community meme, where people work behind the dumpsters after their portfolios go to 0 from 0DTE options.

(No positions, just found it amusing)

I wonder if it’s going to work?

Curious if anyone's portfolio is green after today's fun day.

$KORU: -32.06%

$SOXL: -22.98%

$IQE: -13.58%

$DRAM: -12.6%

$AXT(AXTI.US): -12.57%

$Fluence Energy(FLNC.US): -12.5%

$Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US): -11.2%

$SIVE: -11.7%

$Tower Semicon(TSEM.US): -10.24%

$Sandisk(SNDK.US): -12.5%

$Micron Tech(MU.US): -11.8%

Sk Hynix: -12.35%

Samsung: -9.6%

$Marvell Tech(MRVL.US): -8.3%

$Lumentum(LITE.US): -7.6%

$SOI -7.15%

$Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US): -6.1%

$AMD(AMD.US): -6.04%

Feels like anything high-beta or semis had a steep drop.

Nothing is more stupid than Bloomberg copying BofA playbook with KOSPI back in March.

And framing Taiwan’s $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) ~23.6x forward p/e and $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) upstream supply chain as a “bubble”.

Then using the words going into “debt” instead of “margin” + comparing Taiwan’s market to the .com bubble.

Crap like this is why retail trust in media has dropped off a cliff in the past few years.

I wonder how it feels to miss out on the AI supercycle run…

With photonics, memory,

and even Neoclouds like $Nebius(NBIS.US).

Because you’re busy bagholding into the endless $6,000,000,000 active ATMs with $IREN(IREN.US).

Apparently gym bros are the new hyperscalers.

They’ve created a new bottleneck with whey protein?

Now there’s $Sandisk(SNDK.US) style price hikes.

Maybe creatine is next with shortages.

Trump administration is prob realizing now that the key to winning Trade Wars:

Is through frontier supply chains like Quantum, AI, Robotics.

Not cheap Nike sock exports.

With $ASML(ASML.US), $TOWA, $LPK, Ajinomoto,

over in Japan, EU, TW, Korea, and others holding all the cards…

Since each country holds different monopolies and chokepoints needed to make each industry work.

Which all happens to be OUTSIDE the US.

Tariffing all our partners turned out to be not a great idea.

But not too late imo to repair relations and weaponize global supply chains through partners if Trump wants better trade deals.

Trendforce reports that $AMD(AMD.US) is actively trying to secure CW laser supply with multiple major procurement orders...

Is probably just the start of the bottleneck?

There's not much independent capacity in Western supply chains left other than $SIVE or $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US) and maybe Macom.

Especially after Lumentum/Coherent got locked up with multi-year agreements with Nvidia. (disclosure, own Sive and aaoi)

Lumentum is already CW laser constrained and is likely buying off Japanese companies like Sumitomo/Furukawa if I had to guess per ER, and those are probably running at max capacity.

From the Trendforce report, this is:

"to ensure that its future capacity will not be constrained by NVIDIA and other major Cloud Service Providers (CSPs)."

I wouldn't be surprised if other hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and others saw Nvidia / AMD signing LTAs, and are trying to secure capacity next.

A lot of it is game theory on not getting choked out by competitors, and looks like AMD is tipping the first domino after Nvidia.

But my opinion is that this just goes and show how invaluable this CW laser chokepoint is and the companies are inside it.

New reports that $AMD(AMD.US) is scrambling for CW laser supply.

And is negotiating large-scale purchase orders for CW Lasers to ensure its production capacity is not constrained by $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) (Trendforce)

Obvious CW laser beneficiaries:

- $SIVE (AMD went to GFS for CPO, Sivers reference laser level)

- $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US) (Rosenblatt analyst checks)

Lumentum/Coherent are kinda booked out way into 2028 as well.

Lumentum is especially constrained for CW capacity already from existing EML contracts (so they probably are buying from Sumitomo/Furukawa and co).

Maybe Macom and Japanese giants still have spare capacity. (disclosure, own aaoi/sivers).

I predicted this last year and said hyperscalers should go more upstream to secure capacity... at laser levels, epiwafer levels, or even inp substrate levels.

To not get bottlenecked by Nvidia.

Today, there's a new report that China eased InP substrate exports.

Which is expected to relieve mass production bottlenecks in the photonics market (source: Digitimes)

My optical positions are very happy to hear this:

From $AXT(AXTI.US) (substrates), $IQE (epiwafers) to $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US) (lasers) / $Lumentum(LITE.US) / $SIVE, and others.

Taiwanese optical players like VPEC, Landmark, and others should go brrr as well.

Just to recap: the photonics market, especially for laser companies is moreso "how much can you make" rather than how much demand is there.

InP substrates was one of the main bottlenecks affecting upstream capacity.

So if you're able to make more = more revenue.

Okay my fellow Koreans, it's been awhile.

Foosung (093370, ~$1.2B MC) looks like a massive beneficiary soon.

Basically China export controlled Japan, causing their WF₆ supply chain to go down.

Meaning 25% of the world's supply required for SK Hynix, Samsung, $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) go bye bye.

If you remember the Straight of Homuz with Oil, that's a lot.

Foosung's importance just shot through the roof given from some est. they're 10% of the supply chain?

So that number goes up, massive bottleneck for demand. Then this looks like the best pure play beneficiary outside of China (even if precursors pricing are rough).

Don't have positions, just wanted to publish an idea.

$SpaceX(SPCX.US) is now trading! And it’s now over $2.15T+ MC.

Just in case you’re wondering why indexes + individual names like $Sandisk(SNDK.US) to $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) to $Lumentum(LITE.US) are green now.

Trump just cancelled attacks on Iran.

This market is so volatile…

Markets should be cheering on domestic champions like $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US).

Since it's ideal to support critical AI infra from laser fab to production in the US, rather than being a bear.

Feels like everyone just outsources transceivers to Asia like Malaysia or Thailand...

With $Intel(INTC.US), $IQE, $XFAB, $Micron Tech(MU.US), $Wolfspeed(WOLF.US), $SOI, $SIVE, and others...

If you haven't noticed by now, they're all critical to US supply chains. And every one of them are getting subsidies for securing Western supply chains.

Before a major trade was to short developing US/Western equities, then hedge with subsidized foreign ones.

As seen with the energy/solar firms that went bankrupt, this backfired a lot on US AI infrastructure years later with the power grid.

I wanted to help change this mindset, since I believe it's very positive sum to invest in building up critical Western supply chains like photonics today.

Especially if $Applied Optoelectronics(AAOI.US) hits their $471m/month projections after reshoring their production to America.

Instead of hoping they fail and calling critical nodes in the supply chains memestocks/bubbles, maybe it's good to change mindsets a bit so we don't see a repeat of the US Solar sector years later.

US/EU don't just hand out subsidies or CHIPS act grants to anyone.

There was interesting research published called "Democratization of Retail Trading".

That did a study on 1.6 Million $Reddit(RDDT.US) WSB comments.

and found:

1. "WSB outperformed almost all investment banks at detecting top-performing stocks."

2. "Their average returns compete with the best investment banks and outperform them in certain cases."

Their conclusion?

"We conclude that WSB may indeed constitute a freely accessible, valuable source of investment advice."

I do find WSB is really early to names like $Rocket Lab(RKLB.US), $Robinhood(HOOD.US), and others, but often get timing extremely wrong (with options).

I think X is where all the alpha is at nowadays.