$AXTI

Feels like my $IQE thesis Feb this year got validated alongside $AXTI and others. (I still long on both) So I stopped covering them as much. But TLDR on updates: Early this year, IQE was a distressed but critical chokepoint in the optical supply chain with links to $LITE and others when I published my thesis on it. Since then: - $MTSI signed long term epiwafer supply agreements, took a stake in the company, now IQE is bank debt free (Macom has convertibles, but that's positive) - $TSEM signed agreements for InP epiwafers. - Management explicitly said its IQE agreement was signed to secure the "strategic III-V epiwafer supply required for that roadmap" - IQE signed another ~$14M mysterious AI DC contract. The only part that's still playing out with my earlier thesis is IQE converting their latent/underutilized capacity toward AI DC segment, to match peers like Landmark in the space (which takes time, like slightly over a year if I remember correctly). There's some national security implications that I'll avoid talking about that makes them more important. But basically: FY2025 revenue: £97.3m FY2026 guidance: over £126.5m They're rapidly growing again in the optical sector, out of bank debt/distressed liquidation state, and remains a critical chokepoint in Western optical supply chains. Now... with new agreements with your leading photonics companies for revenue growth, and players like Macom serving as a soft backstop. After a thesis gets validated, typically I just sit back and enjoy growth of a business.

$LITE earnings transcript TLDRs: - "Our visibility into the timing of CPO scale-up deployments has also sharpened. We remain confident in a demand ramp for our ultra-high-power laser chips in the second half of calendar 2027" H2 2027 start of CPO scale up ramp confirmed from Lumentum for their lead customer. - "We were recently given our first external light source, or ELS, module purchase for delivery by the second half of calendar 2027" ELS industry ramp timelines - "The NPO opportunity is completely additive for us, significantly increasing the optical TAM." More TAM for laser chokepoint club - "we expect the 1.6T transceiver uptake to intensify starting in fiscal Q1 and sustain through calendar 2027." - "Even in CW, we’ve been surprised at our ability to price up" Positive pricing power for $SIVE and the other CW laser players. - "As a result, we are able to command a nice price premium that we expect to sustain, as these Chinese if these Chinese guys come online. I caution people also, I think people are some of these Chinese laser suppliers are not delivering in the market today, so they have there is no recourse when they throw out these big numbers. We have not seen anything like that to date in terms of their output." Chinese players are more behind than markets expect, corroborated by $AAOI and $LITE. - "We are way behind in our shipments, unfortunately, on high-powered lasers" "The demand signal has increased, and we are very much further behind relative to our ability to supply." Extreme demand imbalance for UHP CW laser capacity, continued demand imbalance for EML. Shipping roughly +$50M year end -> $100m+ ("triple digit quarter") into much larger H2 2027 and 2028 scale up demand,. - "So what we are trying to do, I think, really in the last three months is secure even more substrate supply" (because of demand imbalance), "we found additional substrate help from $AXTI They are a great partner." Hello InP substrate bottleneck. TLDR: - Lumentum CPO scale up H2 2027 shipments got confirmed, dismissed any "delay" news as market "noise". (one delay report caused so much damage, and it took Nvidia, Lumentum, and all these companies weeks to do damage control). - CW lasers demand ramp second half of 2027 - Extreme demand imbalance for UHP CW laser capacity surprised Lumentum - UHP lasers commands very high margins and is able to price up CW laser capacity. - China further behind in the laser/capacity angle. Basically just validated timelines + demand/pricing for Western CW laser players. CW laser scarcity is already happening before the main volume ramp even begins...

Yes, I'm still bullish on memory like $MU / Samsung. As I said earlier, markets tend to rotate from bottleneck to bottleneck. This week it looks $AXTI to $LITE in the photonics sector is the focus again. The thing is... the primary thing that changed are the stock prices, followed by some narratives + updates sprinkled in here and there. For photonics: > We already knew $COHR / $LITE lasers were completely sold out for the next 2 years during July's drop. > We knew about demand imbalance from $AAOI from last quarter's earnings calls. Nothing deteriorated fundamentally during July's crash, other than listed price after liquidations. Yet tons of people called $AAOI a "scam" when it dropped to $75, or $AXTI a "scam" on its drop to $35... But are bullish again at $140 or $80, when the transciver/InP substrate bottleneck hasn't changed at all, but maybe even got worse... (eg. draft for US ban on new china optical transceivers, scale up demand projections) For Memory: I'm witnessing a lot of retail capitulation, but the same people I'm seeing were mega bullish after $MU signed 16 SCAs and gave exceptional projections a month ago. Or were celebrating Samsung having the highest operating profit in the world. There's updates here and there eg. Rubin Ultra with memory optimizations (which Nvidia strives for every generation), with prices no longer being hiked way above expectations to the extreme. But the operating income relative to MC is just absurd around current prices, especially memory becomes structural. And the demand imbalance should be even worse next year. People tend to capitulate and follow narratives when a sector drops (eg. Helium/LNG back in Iran war), even if the bottleneck or fundamental situation hasn't really changed much (eg. $SPCX Elon earnings call reiterating memory tightness). I can't tell others what to to do: But $AAOI at $140 and $AAOI at $75 are the same company. Samsung at a $1.5T MC and Samsung at a $980B MC are the same company. Just valuations and narratives (often noise) change, and markets rotate from sector to sector.

Good question! This something year-by-year, can't really predict shortages into 2030 from 2026, but it's definitely a structural multi-year demand cycle. Something that I want to flag is that it looks like lasers in specific would likely have extreme shortages for the next 2-3 years, especially during CPO scale up at the very least. eg. CPO laser market would require capacity "8 to 10x bigger compared to today," and added, "I think… no effect at all because the demand is much bigger than the worldwide capacity." As for InP substrates, $AAOI said they were fine for 2027 calendar year but wanted to form JVs because of likely how critical they are since. $AXTI looked like they were just multiplying capacity year after year and depends on who you ask.. Some of the Taiwan epiwafer players say it's extreme shortages for InP substrates, when they feed into your laser players. Your laser players like $AAOI and $MTSI say they're fine. Regardless, we see that convert into revenue inflection points with AXTI anyway (~$130m/quarter in 2027), but I'm expecting ASP to be hiked along the way given their positioning.

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

It makes me happy that people are reiterating my $AXTI thesis from last year like it's a legitimate threat to the AI buildout now. Also just some nuance Innolight, buys EML/CW lasers off other players, which is the bottleneck. Not so much downstream assembly/integration layers.

@R_o_LwSzr $AXTI is too far upstream. I definitely do not see them going to be export controlled by the US. But they could be used in retaliation, we’ll see.

Few earnings TLDRs with my favorite $AXTI and $AMZN: Amazon: - Raised 2026 capex to $220B vs. prior $200B (partly due to higher memory costs, which is bullish on $MU to Samsung) - Even at $220B, Amazon will not have enough capacity to meet all 2026 demand; Jassy expects the same in 2027. - Most incoming 2027 capacity is already reserved, with substantial 2028 capacity also reserved. Mostly read through on upstream semis. $GOOGL, $META, $AMZN, and $MSFT all identified compute shortage. All the narratives a few weeks earlier was "excess compute" from Meta and others + hyperscalers cutting back on spend... All BS. Amazon earnings was very bullish on AI semi trade. AXTI: - AXT to double InP capacity during 2026. Then double again in 2027. This is expected to make AXT "by far the largest indium phosphide producer in the world." - LFG - Q2 rev was $47.6M, the highest quarterly revenue in AXT history (InP revenue reached a record $30.7M, from DC applications.) - Revenue increased 77% sequentially and 164% year over year. - InP revenue-capacity targets: $60M per quarter exiting 2026. - $130M per quarter exiting 2027 That $130m target could be hiked too since management stated they find "whatever ways to increase that capacity expansion" - Management said the reported backlog remains well above $100M, but that number no longer reflects all available demand. "Customer demand continues to outpace supply, no matter how fast we add capacity." 800G/1.6T is driving the current cycle, while NPO/CPO extends it beyond 2027. Also they're targeting 50%-plus gross margin: "We should definitely be targeting a number that begins with a five." China demand more than doubled, and their agreements with Casela, $COHR and $LITE did not materially drive Q2. This is not even considering my projected massive ASP hikes yet as InP substrates get more bottlenecked. TLDR: - Amazon too much compute demands, needs capex to fufill it, so upstream semis go brrr. - AXT world largest InP substrate supplier, high gross margins, expansion, and supply can't keep up with demand. Bullish on demand side from Amazon + capex. Bullish on upstream optical supply chains from too much demand.

@tsorfF7 $AXTI casually up 64% today lol, just a normal day in your markets. https://t.co/1R71TfavjJ

$AXTI secured LTA with $COHR earlier, with a $22.3M reservation payment. As well as a LTA with $LITE today, totaling $87M ($43.5M + $43.5M) again to reserve capacity. Considering that these are both of the two leading optical players, seems positive. The actual details such as pricing of the contracts aren't known, so we'll find out more.

$AXTI enters long term agreement with $LITE for InP substrates. Lumentum has agreed to pay a deposit of $43.5M as a reservation for capacity. https://t.co/5Dl3L9EYRa

Wow, a historic single day recovery. $SIVEF +30.89% $IQEF +28.6% $AEHR +26.53% $CIFR +17.82% $NBIS +17.3% $AAOI +15.6% $LPK +14.48% $AXTI +14.12% $MU +12.54% $SNDK +12.8% $SOI +11.1% $TSEM +10.39% $LITE +9.25% $INTC +8.22% $AMD +8.11% $MRVL +7.27%

Yep, it’s interesting to witness retail capitulation. After we got Bloomberg Meta compute article cleared up by their internal memo. And the 2 reports on delays were denied by Nvidia. Both of which caused the selloff in the first place... So Photonics / Nvidia’s roadmap hasn’t fundamentally changed: $LITE is still completely sold out for the next 2 years and likely into 2029. $SIVE is about to volume ramp with GlobalFoundries, Jabil, Poet, Ayar, and other hyperscaler suppliers. $TSM COUPE and their TW suppliers from Shunsin to Foci aren’t randomly disappearing into the void. $AAOI and their $471m/month h2 2027 revenue projections haven’t changed. $IQE and their epiwafer contracts with Macom and Tower Semi haven’t disappeared. $AXTI ownership of 40% of the InP substrate supply chains haven’t suddenly disappeared. As with any theme from Rocketlab + Space sector 50% drop back in 2025. Or Nebius + Neocloud 50% drop entering 2026. Or the Samsung/SK Hynix crash from Iran War LNG/Helium/Oil fears few months ago. Volatility from indiscriminate thematic selloffs isn’t typically representative of individual company fundamentals. Retail tends to build conviction over price movements and imaginary charts, then lose that when a stock drops. And institutions are probably placing limit orders to capitalize on that. Conviction shouldn’t be tied to the quote of a stock on a certain day, but long term revenue or operating income growth.

@starlightrvrie Yep still holding $AXTI. And a lot of my older thesis like $EWY that are up hundreds of percent. Even if I don’t mention it as much anymore

Let’s put it this way: Retail thinks a 30-60% drop is a “falling knife” where bagholders will never recover. And they end up panic selling after seeing swiggly line TAs and people comparing valuable chokepoints to memes. I see it as long term ownership over: - the next hyperscaler with $NBIS, projecting $7-9B ARR Q4 - 40% of the InP supply chain with $AXTI - leader of the next optical shift with $SIVE with CW DFB lasers - leader of US humanoids with $CCXI inside a future trillion dollar theme And so on… At cheaper valuations. While I might do things like lowering margin or hedging with my own portfolio, I’m personally not panicking when something drops if the thesis didn’t change. NFA and obviously depends on people’s investing timeframes: Since a crash would be life changing for people that depend on investing for rent or tuition. (Which is why I personally think others should do their own DD and choose longs in line with their own risk profile) But my personal goal is maximizing exposure to the next-gen supercycles before they hit. I think institutions think the same way as well, which is why there’s a lot of induced volatility along the way to maximize their exposure. If a thesis ends up correct, the valuation should be reflected in the long run.

This is the average visual TA bro, takes a 50% 50% coinflip: If it goes the other way, they say "ABC Pattern Invalidated", should have known... If they get the coinflip right, they promote their $40/month chart. -> People drawing swiggly lines over KOSPI mean nothing where it heads. When it's primarily Samsung/SK Hynix and forward operating income growth from DRAM/NAND. -> The swiggly drawing over $SIVE, $AEHR, and others mean nothing. When it's primarily hyperscaler suppliers, thematic premiums, and volume ramp orders determining valuations. Then if something randomly goes from $1 to $60 like $AXTI, they claim they spotted it with their "Golden Egg Dragon Candle", while ignoring anything with InP substrate and otpical demand. There's rare times like these where it's a massive sector drop all together. But now the TA bros are showing up everywhere saying here's a $40 course on how they predicted it with swiggly lines.

Nomura’s report cites $AXTI and $IQE as the leading players. Then regarding ASP updates: - 2in InP substrate price hike 42-76% - 3in InP substrates price hike 78% - 2in EML Epiwafer price hike 50-75% - 3in CW Epiwafer price hike ~40%+ - Prices lower domestically in China as expected. Hyperscalers bottlenecking upstream photonics confirmation validation… on all fronts from pricing, demand, to supply shortages. My personal expectation was that price hikes would keep going up like $SNDK given ramping optical demand. We’ll see if this turns out right given another 2 years of the demand curve.

$AXTI signs 3-year wafer deal with $COHR. "Coherent will make a prepayment of $22,288,500 to AXT-Tongmei in exchange for a committed supply capacity." https://t.co/nTkyJSMo96

After $AXTI went from $13 to $140, somewhere along the way up they had a massive float expansion along with dilution. Which it got approved, so as I mentioned before, I wasn't as comfortable talking about it if there's excessive dilution on retail investors. But I do think it's undervalued if they weaponize price hikes like $SNDK.

I've reached 900k followers, thank you everyone! Just some reflection, it's actually a nightmare at higher counts... Which is new to me, since I started at almost nothing earlier this year. 1. Threats of safety, which I don't enjoy. - Random new accounts sending personal threats - Mysterious foreign accounts, sending coercive messages the moment I mention a foreign ticker If I hold an opinion about a stock, I'd prefer not to have anyone show up on the street with a knife at night since it's safety risk at this point... Never felt like I'd have to take that into consideration for holding an opinion. 2. Egregious media narratives - Lot of outlets try to dismiss my ideas like $RPI or $SIVE as "meme stocks" or me as "meme trader" when I talk about supply chain chokepoints or fundamental catalysts to revenue due to AI. Without ever covering the core ideas or hyperscaler mapping I've done. I let success validate my ideas, but it's annoying when they can just pretend their claims like "___ will imminently crash as a fact" which ends up not happening. Or that "___" is just a retail meme stock without mentioning $JBL, Ayar, $GFS or others for CPO scale up or pluggables. I'm grateful to some outlets, like in Belgium for $XFAB coverage, but many others try and paint their own narrative rather than covering a very nuanced thesis objectively. - When I mention a ticker in a foreign market, some try to frame me as some "adversarial account"! I'm just sharing ideas, and I'll always disclose positions/financial interest if I have them. If I say I have none, they just make up some narrative that I'm some foreign institution or random group inside their country that does. Some have even tried hilariously forging screenshots of me to harm my reputation, which was annoying to deal with. Since it's easier to textedit a photo and spread it around than it is to dispel disinformation. Lot of institutions know me personally by now. I just don't go broadcasting my identity to random people in the media/public, since personal security gets expensive and I just want to live about my day. 3. Endless X bot spam - I have endless hundreds of comments a day trying to link external communities pretending they're me. I manually delete, and block thousands of these accounts, sometimes hit regular people by accident. And it's extremely exhausting to the point my fingers cramp certain days. Even if I give the most blatant warnings in bio, people still get scammed and think it's me. Then I get blamed for it too. I actually had a conversation where someone asked if a scammer was me. I said no verbatim, then they double checked like 2-3 more times because they didn't believe I said no because someone had the same username on another scam platform. In another world, maybe we'll get automod type tools. But until then, it's mentally exhausting dealing with all of this. But I do so anyways since I don't want my followers to get scammed. 4. Endless engagement baiting - I have tons of people making up fake stuff about me, tagging me in posts, randomly bashing my ideas while missing any technical nuance in order to get me to comment or farm views. It's a catch 22 since the moment I reply, they get a lot of views, which was their goal. And if I don't reply it just looks like I'm avoiding something (which is not true). I'm very transparent, I always try and entertain people who disagree first. But when it gets into personal attacks or leading questions/disinformation rather than substance then I don't engage. It's a little sad though when people I've interacted with end up caring more about engagement over relationships down the road. 5. People missing the nuance - I share ideas pretty often and I always maintain I don't want people to copytrade or blindly follow, which is why I haven't set up any copytrading apps. Before it was just posting with a few $RDDT friends on ideas like $AXTI, $NBIS, or $ALAB, and people were more knowledgeable traders. Then seeing if markets validate my guesses like with InP substrate bottlenecks. But because many turned out directionally right, to the point it became a central talking point between China/US trade relations, lot of random folks started to follow my account last few months. But many of them miss nuances with float dilution, or material updates along the way such as rate hikes, and I get blamed if a thesis changes. Now since there's so many random people, even if I share an idea about $CBRS last Friday. At market open I had people panicking over a 2% drop, asking me if I did something to a $44B+ company, even if it went up 20%+ today. Now I have compliance review for posts, which delays things a lot but makes sure people don't get the wrong idea. And I have to be careful about my timing, so I post new ideas when markets close. Before, it was just sharing ideas the moment I had them during lunch or in the shower, so this is becoming a headache. 6. I post my core ideas for free. And I've always said this from the start. I actually made my subscribers chat literally by accident, and set the bare minimum amount on purpose since I didn't want to take people's money. But kept it so I could avoid the bots and not spam the main timeline with random thoughts/scrapped research. I think me becoming the #1 most subscribed to person on X was literally by accident. But lot of weird narratives out there when media or others don't believe that I just genuinely want to share my ideas for free. And that people shouldn't need to pay $300 in a paywalled community to see them. _ Not sure if people want to read it all, but just some things I've gone through. It's not as much fun at higher numbers and it would be nice to go back to when I was smaller. Regardless, I'd rather not turn this into a job, or make it feel like one. Will probably take a break when I hit 1M as a milestone and do something else that will help out the community like sharing my research pipelines and such. Think a lot of my friends at 10-50K follower counts, seem to experience some of these issues too. But problems get magnified a lot at this level. I never needed the X creator fees or anything, just wanted to share ideas for fun if people wanted to listen. And didn't expect any popularity, but it's nice to see that people find my ideas compelling.

FYI, I posted ideas about $AXTI at $15, $AAOI at $30, $TSEM at $115, $LITE $300, $MU $300, $SNDK $400, $EWY $110, $SIVE $4. $IQE $13, $SOI $44 and so on. So when they finally have a massive correction due to macro drop the ideas are wrong? And most are still up a few hundred percent. TW CPO names are just really early and I’m down a lot on those but I expect them to recover in due time.

Feels like the only thing that hasn’t crashed… Is memory like $MU, indexes, or large cap semis like Intel so far. - Photonics from $AXTI to $SIVE down 40%. - Space from $ASTS and $RKLB down 40% 1M. - Popular AI names like $PLTR is down ~35% YTD. - Software like $CRM 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.

Think so. But in the meantime, I call my strategy: Diversified Losses. With $AXTI, $SOI, $AAOI, and many others. Had a massive drawdown recently, CPO exposure was hit the hardest (Foci, Msscorp, etc) and adjacent names, feels bad. Probably lesson personally, I had too much concentration in photonics vs. memory/other sectors without weighting/hedging properly. With Soitec, there's been a few negative institutional reports that I'd disagree with. Think AXT was hit harder in specific just because of float expansion/dilution concerns. AAOI, probably just brought down with the theme. I can't give advice on buying, so completely up to you to make for cost averaging or entering positions. But I do think we're still early in the Supercycle with photonics, there's bound to be corrections/crashes along the way up. If my personal thesis is correct though, many of these names will have a major inflection point in midway through 2027 scaling up to 2028. Markets don't typically wait to price things in advance, but some ideas might be a tad early or in the buildout given it's H2 2026 now. Which is why it's important to build your own conviction.

Curious if anyone's portfolio is green after today's fun day. $KORU: -32.06% $SOXL: -22.98% $IQE: -13.58% $DRAM: -12.6% $AXTI: -12.57% $FLNC: -12.5% $AAOI: -11.2% $SIVE: -11.7% $TSEM: -10.24% $SNDK: -12.5% $MU: -11.8% Sk Hynix: -12.35% Samsung: -9.6% $MRVL: -8.3% $LITE: -7.6% $SOI -7.15% $TSM: -6.1% $AMD: -6.04% Feels like anything high-beta or semis had a steep drop.

I think u must be new here. Many of my ideas get intense backlash at the start, especially the more original they are. $AXTI - endless hate to the point I got banned from the $RDDT WSB forum. They thought it was some scam Chinese company, but Reuters, Epiwafer company earnings, and institutions validated their InP substrate position many months later. $RPI - everyone called it some meme stock. Literally Bloomberg, Financial Times, and others went out and called it a meme stock with no fundamentals. Analysts went and said the idea was stupid and said it was going to crash “as a fact”. Earnings came out? Blew away any projection with 58% fwd revenue growth. But they seem to have forgot all the backlash they threw out at me, while they’re citing it as a high growth ai hardware company no. $SIVE? Everyone called it a “meme stock”. I get bunch of hate from Swedish media all the way up. Bunch of people didn’t understand the technical nuances, and they keep throwing personal attacks for some strange reason. But as you know it’s probably my most successful idea and it’s validated so far by institutional buying from Fidelity Research, JP Morgan as well as formally announced partnerships from $JBL to $GFS. Same hate with: - $AAOI at $30, when everyone called management a “scam” or “shady” - $LITE at $300 when everyone called photonics a “bubble” - $RKLB at $20 when everyone thought it was a low revenue launch company that was a bubble. I actually got temp banned from WSB from posting about Rocketlab since moderators didn’t like the stock. - $HOOD at $20 when everyone recalled them freezing GME buys/sells - $IQE at $12 when people thought it was just some random crap $100m company over in the UK with “no actual photonics partnerships” - $SOI at $44 when European bank analysts thought it was “overvalued”and my thesis wasn’t anything new - $NBIS at $75 when everyone in the $IREN camp said I was spreading Russian propaganda and that they had no moat - $INTC at $115 when everyone thought they couldn’t compete with $TSM - $MRVL at $85 when everyone thought they were losing ASIC share to Broadcom. - $AEHR at $35 when everyone misread their earnings and thought they had no revenue - $EWY at $115 when everyone was crying KOSPI was a bubble and LNG/helium/oil would disrupt the memory trade Can go on and on… I do read a lot of the comments, which is why I remember a lot of the hate (probably either jealously, impression farming, or lacking the technical depth is my guess). But I think at this point, people can just see each thesis validated over and over again. And the success in markets drown out the old noise. Good thing is markets are the final arbiter of what’s right or wrong, not the angry comments or posts on X.

I think something to highlight also is not all my ideas are green, especially on short term timeframes! My core three themes are Neoclouds (Energy), Memory, and Photonics. And I'm glad I chose the literal top performers for each segment from $NBIS to $EWY leaps to $SIVE. However, I still have pretty large losses following the false analyst report on CPO delays that $NVDA refuted: That nuked 3 of my TW CPO longs from Foci, Msscorp, Xintec and others. (which are heavily red). Shunsin / Win Semi are holding up much better though. Some of the other ones in Japan that I've mentioned like Towa, Harmonic Drive, NCI, etc. are performing much better following short-term volatility. As for Korea yes I have PTSD for from Auros and now Foosung that are both both red (I didn't own 093370 though, just got PTSD watching price action). Idk if I'll touch Korea again, just way too volatile. But I still think those will end up green eventually following Sk hynix/samsung qualifications + HVM, and the future japanese supply chain shutdown. I also did change some of my previous long ideas like $XLU following the Iran War nuking all chances of rate cuts from 3-4 down to 0, and that didn't play out too well. Three software names I mentioned previously like $TTD, $META ended up red. $SNAP, I also changed my thesis after noticing the endless SBC accounting methods. $RDDT idea was finally in the green from $130 -> $170 after a long time. But I think the vast majority of my ideas like $MRVL, $NBIS, $ARM, $INTC, $MU, $LITE, SK Hynix, Samsung, for larger cap. Down to $AXTI, $LITE, $AAOI, $RPI, $IQE, and others for smaller cap positions directionally play out pretty well. With random stuff like $SIMO, $HPS.A, $TSEM, $AEHR, $LPK, $SOI, $ALRIB, and so on all ended up turning out aight too. The blended average is kinda overwhelmingly green since majority of my long ideas are triple digit YTD. But I've definitely missed a few. Also entry point is really important too... I mentioned $AAOI at $30 or $AXTI at ~$13, but not everyone has the same entry point. So if someone bought AOI at $220 and it dropped to $160, I'd feel bad. But regardless, I'd prefer to judge how ideas play out on medium term timeframes over a few months rather than a few weeks.

Yeah... I'm not quite sure why everyone likes just throwing personal accusations. Like "scam" or "memestock" every time I post a thesis. Like when I bought $AXTI (still holding shares btw): - spent the time mapping the InP substrate supply chain - found analyst sources around market share - tracked high purity indium pricing on SMM - modeled game theory around bottleneck hikes/supply shocks. - tracked Gov publications like seizure of optical companies or export controls Then just posted the idea for free, cause it's a hobby. Everyone just threw out personal insults as it went up in price... Just for Reuters to confirm it 7M later that InP substrates can halt the AI buildout. I'm just sharing ideas out for free, could always be wrong, and they usually take some time to play out. But would prefer instead if folks/media played devil's advocate on the thesis side like export controls or ASP pricing power... Over just making up narratives or personal accusations like "memestock" or "foreign institutional team" when they lack the technical depth to understand AI supply chains.

@aistruder CPO hasn't ramped up yet so very early. Shunsin should actually benefit the fastest though given H2 scale out with Foxconn. Win Semi is great regardless but benefits from photonics vertical. Foci/Msscorps are more h2 2027. $AXTI took like 5-7 months to fully play out.

@yangqisniper $AXTI was a fun one. Actually every single one of my photonics ideas last year went up triple % digits. Got the entire theme + supply chain right! https://t.co/vpWpPO18b7

Fun throwback to random ideas back in 2025. Back then, $AAOI was $2B MC, $LITE was a $26B MC, $AXTI was $500M Now: - AAOI is $15.37B - Lumentum is $74.47B - AXT is $7.24B Was working off less information back then, given it was an early theme. Obviously nuances with ASIC programs might have been missed as more details came out. But directionally, glad thematically my ideas turned out correct. Feels like dejavu seeing current $3B MC optical longs like $SIVE.

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 $AXTI (substrates), $IQE (epiwafers) to $AAOI (lasers) / $LITE / $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.

This is gonna upset a lot of people: But TA is astrology for traders. It's confirmation bias + trading human psychology about entries. Kinda like how people frontran $SPCE from $SPCX IPO expecting retail to mess up tickers by trading psychology. $SIVE didn't go up 1900% because of the golden cross space comet firebreathing dragon candle that someone is trying to sell for $499. It's because markets are pricing in future revenue from $JBL, $GFS that got announced. $AXTI didn't go up 8000% because the golden waterfall candle alert sounded back at $8. it's because of InP substrate, game theory on ASP hikes, export controls, photonics demand, and others. If you want to figure out psychologically what other regards are believing, you use TA. But for determining the actual upside... nah People have been drawing $120+ TAs on $IREN for the past idk how many months none of that crap matters when there's a $6B ATM that needs to be bought through first. It's by theme (eg. $LITE to $AAOI relations), any news catalysts that affect forward revenue, projections, macro news, earnings, float dynamics, and so on. Then you can just derive what MC that company should be at. So for entry points, sure you can use TA. For determining where the stock heads, just throw the tyrannosaurs rex omega-green candle indicator out the window.

The AI supremacy Wars begins. Think a lot of the upstream supply chain bottlenecks caused by each Country export controlling each other (eg. $AXTI) Should present some interesting opportunities in the near future. That being said, Anthropic was getting distilled left and right in Singapore -> China and others. Hot take, but steps like this do help preserve American dominance in AI, keeping the most advanced model at home. I don’t think Superintelligence should be global access, since we’re starting to get into uncharted territories.

@Expelliamus9 $AXTI took many months to play out, before companies and governments started confirming the InP substrate bottleneck. I don’t think CPO related ideas should be judged in a 1 month timeframe!

Just some reflection, my core high conviction ideas from 2025 aged super well! From $ALAB: $97-> $372 $LITE: $330 -> $904 $AAOI: $30 -> $175 And others like $NBIS, $RKLB, and $TSM! This was back when I had close to no followers! I got some nuances slightly off before more information was made public. Lost conviction on ALAB along the way with optical transitions. But this was back when AAOI and others were small $3B companies (~$14B now). So maybe some others in the same range today like $SIVE should get some more attention? But I’m happy a lot of them aged super well. And I think a large part of my recent following growth is just other seeing my ideas like $AXTI get validated over time.

@Ud197601 Everyone kept calling $AXTI a scam, and my thesis BS on $RDDT. Glad to see my thesis being validated by Reuters and Chinese/US trade negotiations lol.

Oh look… a new report by Reuters shows China’s control over InP threatens the AI DC buildout. Who could have guessed $AXTI would have been a major point of failure? https://t.co/mu9sOWGHN6

Still have my $AXTI, and positions in others I haven’t mentioned as much like $ALRIB or $LPK. Axt different reason though, one part is dilution concerns, so there’s some newer float structure risks. Other part is not wanting to cause more export controls by talking about some things

I do see a lot of comments about "harvesting the leeks". And I hope my picks like LeaderDrive can help change that perspective around certain equities being good long term holds. I think my only Chinese listed pick was Innolight last year, and that's up triple digits to ATH? All my ideas come from a Western perspective (eg. institutional research from JP Morgan / Goldman Sachs I synthesize) and what US hyperscalers like $GOOGL or $MSFT require. And I do consider about geopolitical tensions + game theory all the time, such as with $AXTI. I think a foreigner's perspective brings a different kind of alpha here, and I'm excited to share how this plays out. Regardless, I'm excited to see how adventures in Chinese equities go! (also, I'm just 1 person posting thoughts throughout the day. there's a lot of conspiracy theories going around saying I'm some Chinese institution. and yes, English is my primary language, i typo sometimes since I post 20+ a day on mobile mostly).

I think my personal style of investing is a bit different, just some reflection: It's inherently discretionary, based on stuff markets don't know yet. And a culmination of life experiences? If you look at $AXTI, $RPI, $SIVE, $IQE and others. Lot of it is guessing on unstructured relationships then seeing if it's right or not down the line. $RPI is the perfect example: 1. Nobody really thought of Raspberry Pis for AI growth. Mainly people bought one or two just for class + education + hobbyist. 2. After OpenClaw, just noticed all my friends and people just buying Apple Mac Minis / RPIs for AI applications. 3. Found validation of that trend online with lot of people sharing video tutorials on AI orchestration with RPI. 4. AI was their ideal perfect growth vector, did some modeling, and thought it was compelling. Earnings comes out and I was right. Everyone in media was calling it a meme stock because there's nothing online that shows revenue growth from AI (was 14% forecasted revenue growth, turned out to be 58%, my projection was around 55%). So it was a mix of guessing next industry trend (AI using lightweight hardware instead of GPU clusters), real life trends, then revenue forecasting off my guess. For stuff like $AXTI: 1. Everyone called it a joke when I bought at ~$12. LLMs would hallucinate and say "hyperscalers/govs would have known about this by now and fixed this vulnerability with InP substrates" 2. Or would conflate very nuanced parts of InP substrate stack, where there's multiple different chokepoints in upstream processing. 3. So part of this was just discretionary based on what I've seen over InP substrate breakdowns, industry trends, etc. 4. Then also guessing the major supercycle was photonics (this was before everyone caught onto $LITE, and others). Or before you saw the $141B TAM projections from GS. 5. AXT owned 40% of InP supply chain, without them the supply chain just gets cripped). 6. All the "analysts" were forecasting steady InP substrate growth, few hundred million TAM, etc. or export controls. 7. Everyone kept trying to say $AXTI was overvalued based on TAM estimates. But if it's a few hundred million TAM you just think that's a joke and go into game theory over allocations. 8. Then I just had to guess, how much would this be worth if it were a NAND style bottleneck, what MC could it reach based on control, how much would hyperscalers price it as, etc. A lot of the current research outputs from Goldman Sachs, or earnings reports from the Epiwafer companies, were confirmed after I published my piece on AXT. If you did research back then, lot of the same material /framing wouldn't have come up. With stuff like $XFAB as you're seeing now, a lot of it is just pure guessing: 1. Not really any CPO materials, how much their MTP process makes in revenue, etc. Everyone online keeps saying they're not a photonics player. 2. But if you go through ASE docs or Gov websites, they all kinda cite XFAB as a major emerging player here. 3. $NVDA also evaluating them right now (maybe it's successful who knows). 4. No clear revenue around this area because their main silicon photonics process is still precommercial, but if you guess it's trying to create a EU supply chain to compete with $TSEM, once pre-commercial shifts to commercial, maybe similar but less volume contracts? 5. Then just seeing updates over the next few months to see if anything confirms this thesis guess. _ I think a lot of information discovery still can be done with LLMs I'm seeing online. But it's also really hard to make a bunch of unstructured inferences based on unrelated material or even just trends you're seeing in real life. So probably better to just do what's standard, eg. do valuation forecasting based on current numbers Stuff like $AAOI, if they're projecting $471m/M h1 2027 and you see MC at $12B, probably undervalued might be a good idea to go long for next years. Stuff like Samsung Electronics is easier, see what people are modeling for operating profits for 2027, 2028 then just seeing if it's undervalued or not at current levels. Maybe something harder is $JBL. I haven't really seen any great volume numbers around 1.6T LRO, but you can just make a guess on how popular that might be then project how that might impact current MCs. Or picking just good names everyone kinda agrees like $TSM, $INTC, $MRVL is also solid. So a lot of things is just building up your life skills then applying that to markets. I don't think it's that can be taught with courses and stuff. Of course, much of what I'm doing is just high conviction inference based on unconnected parts. Could always be wrong.

I wonder if my chokepoint investment theory… With $AXTI to $SOI to $SIVE will be studied in future history books? Regardless, I think everyone here is a part of making history. Given Reuters to Institutions to Countries are reacting to supply chain game theory with Serenity.

When I first joined it was primarily folks trying to sell expensive community paywalls or TAs. Everyone crowded around the same large stock $PYPL or $UNH investing if they had public thesis. Or hype names like $HIMS. Large part of my popularity was focusing on critical chokepoints, which was my own investing style. Having them validated in markets like $AXTI that went up a few thousand percent. Then not gatekeeping any information. I’ve been getting a lot of copycats that are rising in popularity, but I actually encourage it if they bring their own opinions. As this helps democratize alpha and ideas. I think the recent popularity is just from starting a completely new trend.

- $AAOI at $12B - $SIVE at $2B - Foci at $2.8B - Shunsin at $2B Usually the best risk/reward to me currently. Lot of my answers before like $AXTI already 10x’d, so different lineup this time. $AAOI due to absurd H1 2027 revenue projections from capacity ramp, doing everything from laser fab to assembly in America. $471M/month… that’s in 2027, the TAM increases exponentially in 2028. $SIVE is also ramping absurdly high, 77% revenue pipeline growth of the entire company’s history to ~$799M Primarily from photonics… in a single quarter. And they’re projecting 60% gross margins off that. Foci - $NVDA / $TSM primarily FAU supplier and bottleneck for COUPE. Genuinely not sure how this is $2.8B. BOM share for their passive components + FAU are massive in 2028. Just a bit early H1 2026. Shunsin - Legit you see Foxconn get CPO/photonics related orders over and over for $NVDA and others. Just nobody knows the packaging/testing gets done by Shunsin. A lot of contracts are also under Shunsin’s subsidiary too.. so markets/algorithms don’t know what’s coming imo. Runner up is $XFAB, they’ll probably be central to EU CHIPS act 2 for silicon photonics at ~$1.5B MC. And of course SiC/GaN foundries should go brr with 800vdc push by Nvidia. Especially if they’re the only high volume one in United States per Dpt. Of Commerce. And it’s such a low price/book ratio so you’re kinda getting the company upside for free, while US Gov/EU Gov subsidize their capex.

People do valuation analysis wrong on names like Sivers or $AXTI. You won’t be able to model $SIVE revenue projections if they’re end up doing M&A + TAM expansioning down optical engines/ELS/optical transceiver stack. Right now it’s looking at all the hyperscaler supply chains they’re qualified into, and a venture style thesis on how they can capture more market share of overall CPO supercycle.

Idk… I mean everyone called $AXTI a scam and now it’s up thousands of percent? Everyone called $AAOI management a scam and now that’s up 7x too. Institutions went out and criticized my $SOI long as well at $44 and now it’s $170… after they bought the float… Not sure if it’s short selling or trying to accumulate the float.

I actually got every single one of these predictions right > InP substrate bottleneck > laser bottleneck, and markets rewarding $AAOI with laser fabs for it. But it did take markets 6 months to realize how important $AXTI was. As well as for the bottleneck to start showing up in the epiwafer companies like landmark. All the modeling with AXT was with former contracts made, not after $SNDK style ASP hikes.

Back when $AAOI was ~$20-30 when I went long: I thought $AMZN and $MSFT were qualifying specific optical transceivers for their ASIC programs. Turns out it’s more interchangeable/mass producible. Regardless, glad my thesis on $LITE, $AAOI, Innolight, $COHR, $AXTI played out so well. Keep in mind: everyone on X was saying “scam management” with $AAOI back at $20-30… Or “scam company” with $AXTI at $12. FUD was pretty extreme. Feels like dejavu again… going long on the next CPO architectural shift like $SIVE or Foci? And getting the same comments. We’ll see if my CPO longs play out the same way like Shunsin does with Innolight or $SIVE does with $LITE. Either way all of those are now up hundreds to thousands of percent.

Interesting photonics selloff today on no news? $LITE down -4.95% $AAOI down -4.85% $SIVE down -14.8% $SOI down -5.73% $AXTI down -8.13% $IQE down -12.13% I think it’s probably the most compelling theme going forward (even more than power semis). Just tends to be very volatile on the way up. Surprised about $AAOI though given there’s some institutional notes apparently about long term $AMD or $NVDA agreements. (Rosenblatt). Maybe $600m ATM caps some near term upside. $SIVE as well, given EU Chips Act 2 is next week around photonics, and they’re listed on the blueprint. Same with MSCI/NASDAQ omx inflow next week. I’ve been personally adding to positions since I have high conviction in the photonics theme (CPO especially) given TAM expansion overall next 2 years.

Yep, I model financials around every stock I post, I don’t post breakdowns a lot of time to make it more digestible for retail investors to read w/o jargon. You can see my old $RPI revenue estimates modeling, I got that spot on. Same with $MU gross margin estimates before earnings, spot on. I’ve modeled $AAOI capacity ramp x ASP, from projections to derive MC estimates. A lot of the bottleneck names like $AXTI it’s impossible to model $SNDK style ASP so it’s more of an estimate on how much they can hike + how important they are.

This timeline of getting banned on $RDDT WSB for posting about $AXTI. That stock going up thousands of percent. Then becoming the #1 most subscribed to person on X feels kinda like a Naruto redemption arc to become hokage. Only 12k more to go. https://t.co/J8DNEbYXpl

$RPI, close to ~3x returns. Off the media branded "Meme Stock". I think after retail saw institutions bear post my thesis posts. Then ended up paper handing $AXTI, then $RPI, then $IQE, then $EWY, then $SNDK, then $AAOI, then $SOI. And them watch them all go up 3x-15x+ after institutions bought up the float. Retail finally learned not to trust them with anymore with names like $SIVE?

I think I deserve my own Netflix special after $AXTI and $SIVE? https://t.co/WeD80ogRXg

@happikoala2025 @beauty_oe 超かっこいい画像を作ってくれてありがとう！ まるでリザードンとトランセルが $AXTIと $SIVE みたいじゃない？ でも、トランセルはもうすぐ進化すると思うけどw

Did you listen anon? $SIVE is extremely early. And we’re about to see a ton of institutional inflow (Blackrock, Vanguard, MSCI, NASDAQ) next week for the first time. Then, couple that with NASDAQ listing soon, with even more US institutions entering. This is what it’s like to be in a name like $AXTI or $LITE at the very beginning. And this is still at a point before major institutional capital hit the float or CPO supercycle has ramped.

几个值得重点关注的“实质性垄断”标的: - MSSCORP (6830)：在检测和 CPO 良率把控上构筑了极深的专利护城河。 - $SOI：主导绝缘体上硅 (SOI) 衬底市场。 - NGK (5333)：稳拿薄膜铌酸锂 (TFLN) 晶圆核心技术。 - $AXTI：把控磷化铟 (InP) 衬底等上游关键材料。 像讯芯 (Shunsin) 这类公司其实很难被轻易颠覆，毕竟背靠富士康，而富士康本身就深深扎根于众多核心供应链的腹地 🏭 $SIVE 的逻辑也极其相似。他们已经成功打入 (design in) 了众多顶尖 CPO 架构的设计体系，抱紧了 Ayar、Lightelligence (壁仞的供应商)、Lightmatter 以及 Celestial 等 众行业领军者的大腿 相比之下，个人认为 $HIMX (奇景光电) 或 Foci (上诠) 未来面临被踢出局 (design out) 的风险最大，很有可能会被台积电的光学部门采钰 (Visera 6789) 这类巨头直接垂直整合。不过话说回来，在未来两三年内，借助 CPO 相关的光纤阵列 (FAU) 和无源器件，他们眼前依然有 波巨大的赚钱机遇

You're comparing Sumitomo finished InP substrates vs AXT. $AXTI owns many many material chokepoints upstream required to make the finished substrates. And they're roughly ~40% of the entire InP supply chain like indium/gallium/precursors to pBN crucibles + processing. It's a materials problem, they can always price hike if they wanted to.

AI capex spend is expected to go to "$3 to $4 trillion annually" by 2030 from $NVDA Jensen Huang projections. You're not bullish enough. And it might be a good idea to stay exposed + own the keys of the AI Kingdom: -> $AXTI controls the materials buildout with photonics. -> $SOI controls the AI buildout with silicon photonics. -> $SIVE controls laser chokepoints for CPO. -> $IQE controls Western epiwafer supply chains for photonics. All these started off as tiny companies, yet the trillions of projected capex gradually upward to them.  There's many more in other industries as well. -> AI Capex flows to Neoclouds like $NBIS. -> AI Capex flows to memory like $MU and $SNDK. And many of the "commodity" materials or "science projects" for the past 20 years now a sudden shift in exponential TAM expansion. We're witnessing the next industrial revolution with Artificial Intelligence + Physical AI.

@doomdayer Thanks! Yeah always fun to have those argument with $AXTI + inp substrates back at $15 with all your random retail investors who have 0 knowledge. Then it just happens to show up in all your Goldman Sachs/JPM analyst reports today as a bottleneck.

Photonics is nuanced and using ChatGPT/Gemini makes you miss all of it: 1. $SIVE is actually a chokepoint and partially a bottleneck. The reason it's a chokepoint is leading CPO/optical hyperscaler players go through Sivers, likely: Ayar. Celestial. Lightmatter. Lightelligence. Poet. If you take out Sivers, you literally can't make some of their products + delay their roadmap by years. As many are sole/primary source but are heading the direction on multi-source. As for the bottleneck argument: Win Semi is the bottleneck for scaling laser production. But... the nuance is when you have capacity allocated for the next few years. You become part of the bottleneck itself if players fight you for allocation of finished lasers. That's the nuance people miss with capacity allocation dynamics. It's like saying $SNDK is not part of the NAND bottleneck when Kioxia makes all of it. But when Sandisk has the ultimate control of output supply, they become the bottleneck + have all the pricing power. Sivers controls output supply of CW lasers given allocations, and as seen with $LITE earnings, CW laser is currently bottlenecked as everyone seems to be stuck producing EMLs. 2. Like how LLMs always uses em-dashes. You can tell when people use AI when they always use the same "CW is a dumb interchangeable laser" argument or compare "power" specs after conflating different architectures. That's why your "analysts" using AI will get this wrong over and over. There's CW lasers... and then there's a specific architectural design that Sivers achieves with DFB lasers. If you compare power specs with $LITE vs. Sivers, Lumentum wins in isolation. But they're completely different laser architectures. All the leading CPO players like Ayar, chose $SIVE for an architectural reason for high power, low thermal, laser arrays. $JBL 1.6T LRO also made one of the most dramatic moats cited by their fireside chat, using Sivers lasers. If you think CW lasers are interchangeable with Sumitomo/Furukawa, and others. And can be plug-and-play... i don't know what to tell you? Again: $SIVE makes architecturally unique CW lasers for leading CPO players. 3. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this: $SIVE for 2024-2025 has been going through development contracts. People using TTM revenue or former P/S metrics are using completely the wrong metrics, when there's volume ramp in 2027. It's the same with $AAOI which volume ramps in H1 2027. $AEHR which volume ramps after qualification. $LPK that volume ramps after qualification. This is just missing qualification cycles in semiconductors and how to model financials currently. As for the $LITE comparisons (which was also my long last year): $LITE literally started off selling laser dies before acquisition of Cloud Lite and other downstream optical engine components. This is where $SIVE is at today with starting off in the laser chokepoint for CPO: People are modeling laser revenue off very isolated TAM projections. Meanwhile Sivers is targeting M&A to expand revenue for TAM projections. This is not a simple component FAU + ramp valuation modeling over with a Taiwanese company. Since Laser companies like $LITE, $COHR are known to downstream expand to make their lasers more valuable, then vertically integrate (fabs, assembly) afterward. Again, Sivers worked with Ayar and these types of companies before they all became billion dollar companies. I have high conviction knowing they know what to acquire down the ELS/optical engine stack + pluggable transceiver for TAM expansion. It's just annoying when I get people who don't understand the nuances backseat commenting wrong things about my longs. I got the same thing about $AXTI is not a bottleneck! InP isn't needed! China! back at $14. Now it's $140 I got the same thing about $AAOI "is going down 50%!" back at $65. or "AOI management is shady at $30". Now it's $170 I got the "there's nothing new with $SOI" back at $45. Now it's $170. I think I'm one of the few who actually understands the nuances with photonics, since I did call out $LITE, $TSEM, Innolight, $AXTI, $AAOI, $SOI, that outperformed both photonics markets and overall markets over the past year. And now I'm long on $SIVE.

I don't post dollar amounts because they don't matter. What matters is return %. Speaking of that... YTD: 3840.39%. I'm probably the only one in the world. Who called out multiple names that 10x'd in a short timeframe. Do you remember these thesis anon? 1. $AXTI 2. $SIVE 3. $AAOI 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK 24. $NBIS 25. $MU They're all up 100-1000%+, because... 1. I post a thesis. 2. People can see how the stock performs months later. 3. They turn out right (thesis validation) because they're up hundreds of percent + hold their returns. I really dislike the traditional X influencer who shows large dollar amounts or fancy watches/cars/private jets. Then use that to get more by selling expensive subscriptions rather than through market returns. So trying to set a new trend off pure information discovery/synthesis from free thesis posts and the results that follow in terms of return percentages. TLDR: Market returns in terms of percentages matter the most to validate a thesis. Not the dollar amount made.

5 months ago. I gave a PT of $150 with $AXTI. Over 10x that current values from a $500M MC. It’s now a $9.2B MC and $140. $10 away. New $SIVE longs are starting to realize what’s it’s like to be in AXT. And that I’m pretty good at guessing intrinsic valuations of companies. https://t.co/HXAoKmXmaV

Yep that's completely right. This is the reason why a lot of Chinese equities are considered radioactive or "undervalued" + why I tend not to talk about them too much (even if I like leaderdrive + innolight) Government can nuke or takeover any business over there on a whim. $AXTI is always a risk for example, but Chinese gov is something that always need to be taken under consideration.

??? $RDDT is literally lower IQ than $IREN investors? I didn't do all this research on $AXTI ... Just for you all to make 380% on it, call it a $MU memory competitor and then a scam? The lack of technical literacy is exactly why I got banned from there. https://t.co/sgrFTgcwfM

@labubu_trader They must have a fun time looking at my $AXTI showboating half the time lol

People are really out there saying, don’t doubt me off 10% returns. I present to you: $AXTI https://t.co/1i5iXfWhz2

@TigerMeditation Bro China literally export controlled Japan on upstream InP substrates back in Jan, after my $AXTI post, to halt Western AI photonic supply chains. Maybe it's time for US/Japan to fight back, in ways other than tariffs on cheap underwear??

Next year… I’m expecting there to be many articles about FAU + component bottlenecks. Especially as the new CPO architecture led by $NVDA + $TSM starts to scale. Then a lot of these names like FOCI (~$2.8B MC) or Nextronics (~$246M MC) that I’m mentioning today will be in the center of it. Despite many of these “commodity” labels… (just look at transformers/NAND) And I’ll do a “Did you listen anon post” like $AXTI. We’ll see if this is right.

I literally called out a national vulnerability in the AI supply chain. Then went long on the quasi-monopoly in $AXTI. While everyone was doubting me. Guess what anon: it’s on the White House shortage list and one of the major talking points of US-China trade talks 6M later. https://t.co/mVX0vJ5EuD

Leopold Aschenbrenner is a legend, but I'm not quite sure he can beat 3152.77% YTD in the Serenity Awareness fund. That being said, I've hit 23 different longs this year with 100-1000%+ YTD. 1. $AXTI 2. $AAOI 3. $SIVE 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK Do you remember all of these anon?

This $AXTI / InP substrate export controls is EXACTLY why: Trump's America 1st policies should focus around securing its supply chains over in EU/Japan/KR. And weaponizing it against China. US alone has leverage, but everyone together has extreme leverage. If you use Japan to cut off China's humanoid program / upstream chemicals and leverage EU to cut off China's photonics program: They'll bend for substrates and rare earths. You literally need to break their frontier industry development over yields or actually manufacturing the components. Not just threaten 40% tariffs to stop them from shipping cheap goods.

LOL chat no way... Can't believe $AXTI / InP substrates really a major part of the China-US Donald Trump's trade talks with Xi? I got this thesis completely right. But really, Japan should start to cut off upstream machine supply like Ulvac for humanoids. And red phosphorus like Rasa/NCI to China, if they're not shipping. And US should pressure EU to take back their their photonic monopolies like ficonTEC that Chinese companies like Robotechnik managed to buy.

People wonder why I'm focusing on non-US markets recently. Why? CPO is my #1 thematic long. Markets don't know yet, the sudden paradigm shift in photonics... I was one of the only to frontrun the current supercycle in 2025 w/ $AAOI @ ~$30, $LITE ~$300s, and $AXTI at ~$13 on X.... With the actual receipts and thesis that others can't show. CPO goes from ~$0. To $91 Billion TAM opportunity. In the next 1 1/2 years from GS research. While overall optical market reaches $154B. Many players that had little exposure to the current photonics cycle at all: -> In Europe with high-end lasers design like $SIVE or $SOI with substrates. -> In Taiwan with Foci (3363), Nextronics (8147), Shunsin (6451) and others for optical components and foundries. -> In Japan with laser mass production, substrates, and chemicals. Are suddenly the new dominant players for CPO. As for US players, there's not much exposure. But the existing ones like $LITE, $COHR still get upside from CPO as that's their new growth vector. My contrarian thought process on current players: Is that most of their valuation is priced in huge legacy pluggable revenue that will inevitably face cannibalization over time, so re-rating potential is less unless someone uses leverage. A lot of these new purer play CPO names go from 0 to 100 extremely quickly one mass production starts H2 2026 for scale out (as a revenue bridge) into H2 2027 for scale up (massive growth driver). Markets usually price things in 8-12 months ahead of time too... I have high conviction thematically in my supply chain research despite any market volatility leading up until then.

Random CPO related names I like: - $SIVE - Foci (3363) - $TSEM - Browave (3163) - PCL (4977) - $AXTI - Msscorps (6830) - $IQE - Shunsin (6451) - Furukawa Electric (5801) - $MTSI - Nextronics (8417) - $LITE - $COHR - FitTech (6706) - $GFS - $ASX - LandMark (3081) - $SOI Disclosure: I own most, not all though.

Did you remember my $AXTI InP substrate bottleneck call last year anon? IntelliEPI CEO (Q1 2026 ER): "The InP substrate shortage is a bottleneck for the entire AI infrastructure" Digitimes: "Taiwan's IntelliEPI warns of severe indium phosphide supply shortage" I said as photonics ramps: There was going to be a major InP bottleneck as all the next-gen AI architectures go optical. This was most goated call with AXT as the upstream chokepoint. I'm usually a few months ahead of time, but they play out directionally. While I'm sitting in existing bottlenecks up 1800%+, I'm long CPO as the next major supercycle.

I’m just going to leave this here with $AXTI. 100% of the comments were negative when I posted at ~$13. And I got banned later after it went up 10 times. https://t.co/6FrSXod6s8

I've noticed that it's always like 4-6 weeks after my thesis post... That a bunch of institution start buying up names like $AXTI, $SOI, or $IQE. I'm not sure if it's just luck with timing. Or if they're reading my posts and need time for DD? https://t.co/jwCXyl9mb6

And... $AXTI is now over $100, even on a -10% drop. Cool to see this thesis play out so well. I think it's my proudest one... calling both the 2026 photonics supercycle as well as the most upstream bottleneck. https://t.co/eiYElTtWsE

I think many people are surprised to learn that stocks don’t move in a straight line up. Today: Laser companies from $LITE to $SIVE to $AAOI are down -8.0%, 10.2%, and -4.38%. Taiwan limit down -10% on CPO names like MSSCorps, Shunsin, and adjacent like Win Semi. $AXTI and $SOI are down -7% and -10.2%. After $LITE reported earnings. Pretty sure markets missed the heavy nuance that this was extremely bullish for CPO names like $SIVEF or Shunsin from the earnings transcript, but algos sold off everything optical. This is still the very beginning of the entire CPO supercycle curve. Before any volume ramp.

I think this is just $LITE corporate wording for: “We don’t have enough InP substrates”. Remember I sad last year that as photonics ramps up, $AXTI will just keep growing as a critical bottleneck? https://t.co/DfeQa3haIK

True… I did call: $AXTI $12 -> $105 $SOI $43-> $145 $TSEM $110 -> $218 $AAOI $30 -> $180 $IQE $13 -> $46 $LITE $363 -> $1000 $AEHR $30 -> $85 (if you count siph segment) As individual thesis posts… and others like $COHR and Innolight last year… I think $SIVE is the most debated right now, but I do think I’m right. Feels like I’m seeing something others don’t with photonics?

Still think $AXTI was my most legendary thesis. Don’t think this will get beat by anything, now that it’s near ~$5.3B MC. https://t.co/eM3UCYsQAR

Did you listen anon? It’s still crazy we’re still only at the very beginning of a multi year CPO supercycle with $SIVE. This is what it feels like to be the very first to the names I’ve called out like $AXTI, up 6000%+ over the past year. Still think Sivers is the next $LITE. https://t.co/JdfMd7sNTK

Last year I called out $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI, $AXTI, and Innolight before the supercycle... This year: Found $SOI, which was the SiPH substrate = $AXTI. Then $SIVE, which was the CPO = $LITE. Might have found the CPO equivalent of $AAOI. Curious if anyone can guess?

Photonics go brrrr $AXTI +17.34% $AAOI +12.47% Hope you listened to my original thesis anon? https://t.co/SCo3h80afN

Retail short sellers should really not touch $AXTI. I keep seeing people misunderstand $AXTI as only "InP Substrate" with Sumitomo, over and over but just never made a comment. This is wrong. They are literally 40%+ of the InP supply chain, which is why institutions are funding them. They hold MANY chokepoints, not just InP Substrates. As seen with the Gulf, removing ~20% of a supply is catastrophic, but do that with 3-4 other chokepoints. -> All the raw materials (indium, gallium, germanium). Vital and $AXTI (captive, JinMei) are the duopoly alongside Chinese companies. With Western 5N and others only holding a small fractional share. Since China (Vital, AXT) controls majority. -> pBN Crucible chokepoints: $AXTI is a another massive chokepoint (BoYu). there's a few other players like ShinEtsu/Morgan/etc, but this is another bottleneck in refinery layers. InP substrates: $AXT / Sumitomo are duopoly here, with JX, $COHR holding just a tiny percentage. There's many other processes (eg. Red Phosphorus) here too (eg. Nippon Chemical/Rasa) in the middle. This is a materials problem. $COHR can't just make InP substrates without all the upstream materials + refineries that $AXT controls. If $LITE CEO can't sleep at night because of InP substrates, $5B valuations mean nothing to the Western hyperscaler buildout stay online. Japan is actively getting export controlled on upstream materials, while AXT holds them all captive. So TLDR: It's not just "InP Substrates" that i see a lot of short sellers conflating. It's all the indium, gallium -> refinery processing -> pBN Crucible that goes into the final duopoly InP substrate creation process they share with Sumitomo. if Vital and multiple chokepoints upstream stops shipping, downstream to the Western InP substate makers. AXTI becomes a mini-monopoly. The valuation comes from owning the entire supply chain, not just "InP substrate creation" that even institutional analysts dont understand.

I am now long MSSCorps (6830) ~$1.4B MC This appears to be a functional monopoly in CPO for inspection. But markets might have conflated that with Material/Failure Analysis with MA-tek and iST (oligopoly). For customers from mapping: 1. $TSM 2. $NVDA 3. $AAPL 4. $AMAT 5. $LRCX 6. $ASML 7. $INTC And high probability $AVGO, MediaTek, Samsung, $MRVL, and others (they did mention EU too). If you're curious: - Taipei times names TSM as a client that Msscorps provides them with advanced material and failure analysis and name drops Apple, Nvidia, Lam, AMAT (also S/O to Latent for doing DD with me on this. there's other supply chain relationships to Nvidia through things like linkedin) - For $AMSL, Taipei Times, Sept 10, 2024 "ASML adopted Msscorps' ultra-sensitive materials analysis of photoresists" For Intel - Material analysis lab MSSCORPS has secured orders from major manufacturers such as Nvidia and Intel (Industrial Technology Research).
 For inspection (non-destructive infrared (IR) leakage detection), they're a monopoly. And have aggressively used litigation (like the Enli Tech lawsuit) to lock out rivals, which I view as a positive thing. This creates massive pricing power with yields and every major player goes through them. CPO inspection market is also extremely critical and like $AXTI in the InP substrate section, this massive chokepoint has pure pricing power with price hikes. The risk is the patent suit doesn't go as plan, but Nvidia and other hyperscalers aren't likely to go with other parties in case MSSCorps wins, so this creates a massive multi-year advantage anyway. Hyperscalers aren't going to wait to see how an emerging competitor is going to win or not + take the risk. I do see the massive re-rating potential with MSSCorp holding a critical yields chokepoint over CPO, so I went long (NFA, DYOR), this is just my thought process.

I’m personally a fan of the functional monopolies. Here’s 6 of them that I own. 1. $TOWA (6315) - HBM4 Compression 2. MSSCorp (6830) - CPO Inspection 3. $LPK - Glass Core Substrates 4. $SOI - Silicon Photonics Substrates 5. $AXTI - End-to-End (mineral, refinery, production) InP substrates. 6. $ALRIB - Quantum / MBE (hybrid level systems). I can’t give recommendations. But for me personally, I wouldn’t buy all of them today eg. AXT until there’s clarity over share authorization + it ran like 1000% already within a small timeframe. But just thematically as you’ve seen, they tend to outperform so I’m holding all regardless. There’s a lot more of these out there that you should definitely research yourself. Always better to teach the thought process so people can do this themselves.

This is true. A few of bank analysts got passive aggressive when I called out $SOI back at $40 and it rose 125% since then. Same with $SIVE and it’s risen a few hundred percent (and keeps going up) But these same institutions are the one buying afterward on $IQE to $AXTI. Usually institutions have silent accumulation periods blocks over months to not raise the price + accumulate the float off retail. Then tell retail investors after it’s risen a lot and they own 5% of the company. But if markets price that in a lot faster, institutions are forced to buy a lot higher. Which is basically frontrunning institutions on supercycle names.

It's highly nuanced, and I'll explain why it's not late, but late to some: Photonics is the newest supercycle (maybe H1 into H2 2025 was the start). Then there's many different architectural changes in each supercycle: -> $LITE, $COHR, Innolight, $AXTI and these names led the first I did a thesis post on mentioning all four of them as the largest beneficiaries (all are up 500-1000% 1Y) -> $AAOI, $JBL and others types of names are benefit immensely as the transitional bridge (eg. 1.6T pluggable) -> $SIVE, Celestial, Ayar, $POET are others future gens eg. CPO (what I'm focusing on now) -> VisEra, QD Laser, $ALMU and others are likely going to be future gens (quantum dot, different packaging types, etc) if you fast forward 4 years. Of course, $LITE does everything. $AXTI will be used for everything. But the amount of pure play exposure for each architectural shift in each mini supercycle is different. For example, inp usage with quantum dot is still there, but less used. Or DFB laser arrays for CPO instead of EML. There's probably still 50%+ with $LITE and $COHR. And you're a little on the "late" side of things. But you're extremely early to new architecture generations. What I'm trying to do is point regular retail investors into the direction of new gold mines for free. Before institutions figure out sooner or later by paying $20k for equity research reports.

Two most viral stories on $RDDT: 1. Turning $252K -> $7.7M with $AMD 2. Turning $167K -> $2.2M with $RKLB. These stores are likely true, since it's possible to find these niche leaders to change your life around: Again and again across different industries with semis to space. What matters is: -> Finding these rare gems / leaders in a niche field. -> Having enough concentration, for it to matter. -> Having enough conviction to sit through volatility. -> Letting the thesis play out (even if it's across multiple years). You've already seen me do it multiple times with photonics like $AXTI, $IQE, $SIVE, and others. But everything is just speedran from 5 years to months due to AI capex acceleration.

Did you listen anon? The fact that $SIVE is up 600%+. But still can 10x from here in a year... once ~ $AAPL, $JBL, and $MRVL require mass production of their lasers in 2027. Is incredible. Probably my most legendary thesis post since $AXTI. https://t.co/8rOZNdV9bX

There's a reason I spotlight EU small caps. This my investment thesis that I haven't publicly stated yet. And I hope people spend the time to read: From $ALRIB (quantum/MBE), $LPK (glass substrate), or $SIVE (DFB Lasers). Or even Asian names like Nippon Chemical. It's to prevent hostile actors from taking over or disrupting critical chokepoints required by America. FiconTEC (Europe) as one example (though private) was acquired by Chinese CCP affiliated companies. Not even sure how this was legal and Germany should 100% seize it back from China. They were a quasi-monopoly over testing for CPO/SiPH needed for AI and LIDAR. It's clients include the most critical players in AI and semiconductors, such as $NVDA, $TSM, $AVGO, and $INTC. Over time, significant intellectual property and technological IP transfer to China is highly likely after these acquisitions and they'll have more control over US supply chains. With enough American ownership enough spotlight on these companies: we would be in a worse shape with hidden CCP ownership/takeovers. Or we would have more backdoors on American supply chains like with $AXTI and InP substrates (if we weren't building up independent capacity now). The EU has allowed upstream supply chain chokepoints (like specialized testing or substrate manufacturing) to be bought out or have their IP transferred by geopolitical rivals. While America still not might realize a lot of these vulnerabilities. This is the most I can do as a retail investor to prevent this from happening. Eventually policymakers will pay attention and prevent this from happening if all the movement happens from grassroots (retail) and bottom up.

Bro everyone was doubting me on names like $IQE. Yet how come… all these institutions from UBS or Point72 buy in after my thesis posts? Not sure if Swedish media bearposting $SIVE realized who found $AXTI? I’m very confident institutions will likely follow-in soon given Sivers lasers power $MRVl, $JBL, Ayar, and others… with links to $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN and other hyperscalers.

I’m genuinely impressed one of you copy traded your way into managing a hedge fund. But please don’t blindly copy stuff I talk about like $AXTI or $LPK. That’s the main reason I haven’t done copy-trading apps or tell people when I sell. I just want to publish interesting thoughts / research for free as I go along my journey. With the goal of helping you all synthesize complex information to build your own thesis/conviction. Happy to help share my thoughts for free though.

Frontrunning 1.6T/CPO within the broader photonics supercycle is the most compelling investment to me. I have high conviction in that statement. Which is why I'm long the entire supply chain (+1 extra bottlenecK) 1. $SIVE - Their laser revenue scales aggressively with $JBL, $MRVL, Ayar, O-Net. And I do think CPO/1.6T will blow away any conservative analyst projections from how hard $NVDA, $GOOGL, and others have been pushing photonics architectures. Downside risk is multi-sourcing, but there's a reason Jabil chose Sivers. When you compare $MTSI, $LITE, $COHR, Furukawa, and others. There's genuinely not many laser suppliers in the entire world... they're all $10B+, then you have this mini CHIPS act chokepoint trading at <$1B MC. 2. Shunsin (6451) - I don't see how it's possible Foxconn's optical foundry for testing, packaging, and assembly is valued at $1.5B MC less than $LWLG. When they look extremely derisked piggybacking off of Foxconn's photonics volume. $TSM's optical arm VisEra example is ~$5B, but they scale H2 2028 from Gen-3. Foxconn looks to be ramping up just next year. They're just scaling low fwd p/e multiples off of $NVDA CPO supply chain demand in Taiwan and all public indicators point to capacity expansion + extreme demand. 3. Win Semi - They're the foundry for Sivers to scale up DFB laser production. As well as $AVGO, SpaceX supply chains and others. When I do supply chain mapping and Win Semi pops up in every single frontier supply chain I see. There's probably something markets are not pricing in. 4. $MRVL - I find this genuinely compelling as a mini-Broadcomm. Their potential design with with $GOOGL today, helps the case past 2028. But the catalyst I was looking at was $MSFT Maia ramp, which happens H2 2026, and likely keep scaling up exponentially into 2027, 2028, 2029. Celestial acquisition was probably the smartest thing in the world for them. Maybe on next drop or CSP? 5. $HPS.A - Transformers/Switchgears are commodities + boring parts of the DC supply chain. However, when the bottleneck is 2-5 years, and you have backlog increasing 100%+... causing extreme shortages. It's only up 20%+ since my thesis post, but I do see this being de-risked given massive backlog visibility (even though it's inferred, they don't give exact #). I do think markets are missing something, especially with potential gross margin expansion from price hikes if they pull it off.... Again backlog + demand just de-risks this company, and it seems like a high growth compounder post facility expansion last year. There's many others like $NBIS, $JBL, $RPI, $TSEM, $LITE, $ARM, $SOI, $AXTI, $IQE, $ALRIB, Fittech, PCL, and others that I'm very fond of, but just mentioning 5 off the top of my head from today's prices... if I'm creating a new portfolio. Of course, it's good to barbell with other uncorrelated companies to AI supply chains, but these are just 5 I liked.

Wow, majority of these 30 stocks I’ve liked are up a lot in just two weeks (just a recap to new folks) By the way, my long term opinion doesn’t change on any of them from $MRVL, $AMD, $ARM and others. Short term entry points do though with names like $AAOI to $AEHR. And they make the difference between +10-20%. I focus a lot about the “undiscovered” ones like Riber or $SIVE or $RPI or $IQE in analysis when I make a new entry -> wait for it to play out. But the same thesis around $LITE or $NBIS or $AXTI from last year is still the same. And I don’t need to post that same thesis multiple times, since it’s not new anymore. But the reason they’re not new is because markets have validated the thesis and are repricing the stocks live because of them.

It’s still funny that there’s so many: “If you invested $10K into ____ you would have ____ today!” Then they’re all the stocks I was the original thesis poster on from $AXTI to $IQE. Wait 6 months and you’ll probably see the same thing with $SIVE and my other bottleneck thesis posts.

Genuinely thanks for nice comments. I share my ideas for free in the end though since I want to help out the retail community. $TSEM hit triple digit return... so that's 16 different names YTD. So my YTD hit 1525%+ as a result. Just to recap all the endless abuse and harassment along the way: 1. $AXTI - "Pump and Dump", "Scam Chinese Stock", Got banned from WSB $RDDT after Mods got mad investors actually made money AXT going from $12->$80. 2. $AAOI - "Pumping stock with no fundamentals, Meme stock" 3. $SIVEF - "Pump and Dump" "Meme Stock" 4. $LITE - "Photonics Bubble" 5. $IQE - "Just pumping low MC stocks" 6. $AEHR - "Stock with negative revenue growth, why is anyone following this guy and not paying $2,000+ for my subscription?" 7. $CRCL - "TA says it's going down to $30" 8. $EWY - "Just from followers" (hint, it's the South Korean Index) 9. Unimicron - "Idea is useless give me US stocks" 10. Nitto Boseki - "Idea is useless give me US stocks" 11. $OSS - Stealing Ideas (no, my synthesis around Venezuela was novel) 12. $GDRZF - "You're a terrible human trying to profit off of the War in Venezuela" 13. $RPI - "Meme stock all because of a Meme Trader" (FT, European Media). 14. $SOI - "Pump and dump", "no novel idea" (random analysts) 15. $ALRIB - "Pumping low MC stocks" (no, it's $MSFT quantum information discovery) 16. $TSEM - "Pumping based on followers alone" (bro it's $25B+, these are institutions) Or how about... the idea around fundamentals was right all along? And I'm just sharing information synthesis/discovery before institutions find out about them. Retail and media should be celebrating when 16+ different ideas return 100%+ YTD, since stocks are positive sum. Everyone from retail, the companies, and local economies benefits. Instead, negativity is through the roof and people keep trying to diminish/downplay the ideas like frontrunning the photonics supercycle… even when they actually turn out right? The trolls are starting to get to me, from $IREN folks creating new accounts every day just to send IRL threats, to European media disinformation about "pumping and dumping"... since I do read every comment. But notice... how 95% of things keep going up? And institutions like Point72 and Apollo end up buying the names I mention? Comments like this do make it helpful to stay on X, and I do enjoy taking victory laps on the haters.

$HPS.A is up 21% since my thesis 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, not everything can go up 100% every 2 weeks like $AXTI? If the transformers bottleneck is that extreme for multiple years… Sometimes it’s better to wait for markets to price that in. $AEHR or $AAOI triple digit rallies in few week timeframes probably set unrealistic expectations… Even 10% return yearly is usually good in markets? This has been 21% so far and I have comments asking if this is still good, but I’m hoping it’s another triple digit return in due time.

Holy crap $SOI. $AXTI went up 30% yesterday too. Substrates to brrr? https://t.co/nK6o6BKNrl

Glad to hear it! I've went long and wrote thesis posts on about out 15 different stocks that hit 100-1000%+ YTD? 1. $AXTI 2. $AAOI 3. $SIVEF 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB Not including others like $TSEM that are about to hit triple digit returns too in a month. The amount of hate people like myself get for posting free ideas over the internet is pretty insane TBH. Starting to make sense why people just set up $20,000 paywalls and sell info to Western institutions instead of helping out salty retail investors (especially over in Europe). But helps me keep motivated to keep posting with these positive comments.

It’s just that the world wanted me to reach 1000% unrealized gains on $AXTI. My most legendary thesis to date. https://t.co/WR6Fq1Vyez

My $IQE call… might actually outperform my legendary $AXTI thesis soon? It’s only been 2 months: Now it's up over +316% after institutions started publicly buying… and keeps going up. Fun time for critical chokepoints like $ALRIB, $SIVE, and $SOI recently in Europe. Probably expect them all to compound another triple digits from here, even after all their rallies. Retail is just extremely early for the first time. So, expect a lot of institutional capital to pour into these critical supply chains companies soon, especially $SIVE after Nasdaq listing.

A Guide by Serenity: How to Cripple the Western Hyperscaler buildout with just $170m. Just take over Nippon Chemical (4092) with $169m! For InP substrates, you need: Indium and High Purity Phosphorus. Thought $AXTI was a bottleneck? NCI is the bottleneck of the bottleneck. NCI is actually the leader of the high purity red phosphorus chokepoint holding 26-27% of the market share (Rasa has less share, then the rest is China). And they export to $AXTI, Sumitomo, JX that need it to make InP substrates. 
So… if you have $160m to spend to acquire NCI (plus Rasa as smaller capacity), you can remove the leading Western world’s production of 6N/7N red phosphorus needed to make InP substrates! And without InP substrates: no photonics. Fun fact: China’s tech companies would get pretty disrupted with it too by NCI. For $AXTI, the mapping/reliance is actually pretty interesting: - AXT's Tongmei outlined its structural reliance on importing high-purity precursor materials from Japan on their STAR Market listing 
- WITS data showing ~$460/kg high-purity phosphorus flowing from Japan into China So they secretly do depend on NCI. 
China does have capacity like Wylton Chemical, Qin Xi New Materials, Jinding Electronics, and Chuxiong Chuanzhi, Guizhou Wylton Jinglin Electronic Materials as well. However, they’re all smaller players so can’t make up for high purity red phosphorus capacity provided by NCI for InP substrate production at scale. $LITE CEO already said inp substrates keeps him up at night. So now with NCI, you can give the guy permanent insomnia? For just $169M. So here's what the supply chain looks like: -> DGC phosphate rock mine and ships it to NCI -> NCI refines Yellow Phosphorus into High Purity Red Phosphorus -> Sumitomo / JX / AXT melt the Red Phosphorus with Indium to grow InP Substrates -> $COHR / $LITE fab InP substrates into Lasers -> Innolight/Fabrinet package them into 800G/1.6T transceivers -> $NVDA / $GOOGL use them for ASIC/GPU clusters. 
And basically, the entire West depends on NCI to make InP substrates for photonics. I hold some very small positions, just for fun. However, Japan is not well known for price hiking. So you’d probably run into regulatory problems eg. FEFTA if you bought the company and hiked prices 15000% (like government seizing back the company once they realize)… Maybe 30-50% hikes is possible to compress fwd p/e? But very likely wont end up like $AXTI. 
 Regardless, this company is a massive, massive national security risk priced at ~$160m. As for fundamentals, they’re trading at .54 book value and a forward P/E of 11.4 so it’s probably undervalued anyway. TLDR: -> Is it the next $AXTI? No. -> Is it an unknown structural bottleneck + critical vulnerability of the Western hyperscaler buildout with photonics? Yes. -> Is there still room for re-rating? Just reverting to Book Value of 1 is immediate 80-85% upside. Maybe more if you give it multiples past 11 fwd p/e. Regardless, it’s fun to find a major point of failure in the hyperscaler supply chains for $169m.

They’re still there. It’s just hard to say anything…. When all my recent thesis posts from $HPS.A, $IQE, $AXTI, $SIVE, $AAOI, $LITE, $NBIS, Win, Shunsin, $AEHR, $TSEM, $SOI, and many many others I call out. Just hard outperforms the market. Year to date of +1,116.29% isn’t too bad, right chat?

Holy ****, I really hope Ajinomoto doesn’t give into these activist shareholders. WSJ finally broke older news that: “Palliser Takes Stake in Ajinomoto, Urges 30%+ ABF Price Increase” (major chokepoint) Yeah, I did the same with $AXTI … but that’s US/China so it’s okay. There’s a reason why nobody copied that same playbook for Japanese companies. Trying to change Japanese culture with Western hedge fund predatory price hikes is not encouraged.

I feel like I've called out the most triple digit stock returns YTD... Out of anyone in history? Hence why I have 150k+ followers now! In just a short timeframe: $AXTI -> 5x+ $AAOI -> 5x $SIVE -> 2x+ $LITE -> 2x+ $IQE -> 2x+ $AEHR -> 2x+ $CRCL -> 2x+ $EWY IV -> 2x Unimicron -> 2x+ Nitto Boseki -> 2x+ $OSS -> 2x+ $GDRZF -> 2x+ $AEHR -> 2x With many more like $TSEM, $RPI having close to triple digit returns. Not including many others last year like $HOOD or $RKLB for triple digit returns, just this YTD. There's stuff like $FORM and others like Macronix... and $NBIS that actually doubled from the bottom at $70. But I won't take credit since I didn't do a specific post about it during the timeframes. There's a difference between just mentioning among many other tickers. Then having conviction like myself, writing a specific thesis post about it, getting catalyst timing right, and going long yourself. But proud if this helped retail going the right direction. Especially that they don’t need to pay $2,000+ just to see tickers people go long on or join some “special club” for company discussion.

I cooked pretty hard finding $IQE? Another massive triple digit gain. Up 23%+ today. I said earlier that next $AXTI 10x would be either $AAOI, $IQE, or $SIVE. We'll see which one ends up winning. https://t.co/v8rAHL8Wjk

Sorry everyone, Soitec ( $SOI ) is only up 39.28% since last month. Unfortunately, they were an underperformer in my photonics basket. Not everything can go up triple digits every other month like $AXTI or $AAOI. https://t.co/OwlOzugf68

Getting tired of 100K+ follower accounts that who charge $2,000+ a year just to see their stock picks… That then get frustrated over someone who shares names from $AAOI to $AXTI for free… And then judge $AEHR or $SIVE by previous year revenue without understanding CPO/SiPH ramp in 2027. Feels like these accounts will get eroded over time as people realize they can get alpha for free instead of paying thousands for it.

Everyone on X kept talking about CS 153 Frontier Systems... Some folks wanted me to come so stopped by Stanford. Maybe ask Jensen about $SIVE and $AXTI later. Anyone have questions for Elevenlabs CEO? https://t.co/rBtYYV4aHc

If you’re curious about $AXTI: It’s down 21% on the new potential dilution news. Board wanted to add 50M more shares (up to $2B worth to dilute) for shareholders vote in the 14th. 70m -> 120m shares. I say this about $IREN excessive $6B dilution and it’s the same with AXT price proposal that I hold. I would not “trust in management” to use it wisely and the fact it’s filed is a red flag. That being said: we’ll see what happens on the 14th. If it passes for 50m more share authorized dilution, I personally would not hold. But it fails, I expect a recovery.

Oh... who could have thought Tungsten would be important back in January? "Tungsten Price Soars 557% Amid War in Middle East" Certainly not companies like $ALM up 75% this past 3 months after China's export controls. If you're looking for other precious materials to look out for: Indium, Bismuth, Tellurium, Molybdenum, Lithium, Antimony, Gallium, Germanium, and Graphite... were all named in exports controls. Unfortunately, I've been in $AXTI which mainly centered around indium, gallium, and germanium, only up 215% YTD. But, there's a lot more important companies out there during the supply chain panic.

I got cited by Bezinga today after I made fun of Jim Cramer. They included my quote: “Thanks for saving $MSFT Jim”. But in the title they called me a Meme Trader… I didn’t know all my longs in AI supply chain bottlenecks from $AXTI to $LITE were memes? Always appreciate the news coverage though… especially if it’s comments around Cramer on Bezinga or Burry on Yahoo Finance.

I just realized… hit 5,118.02% returns last week. 5000%+ not too bad in <2 years? Hard to keep up with $5 footlong sandwich inflation even after front running: -> $MSTR for halving -> $RKLB and $HOOD for space/fintech rally -> $GOOGL and $TSM for large cap rally -> Samsung, SK Hynix, Asian equities for memory -> $LITE, $AXTI, and $COHR for EML/photonics -> $SOI, $SIVE, $AEHR, $TSEM, Win for CW/SiPH/CPO. Some side quests here and there with Venezuelan natural resource companies and drones (that didn’t turn out as well). But generally market read has been decent so far on what’s coming next. And I do think scale up photonics is next, especially focusing on CW laser companies, substrates, testing and foundries.

Lightcounting: "This is not a typo" Optical interconnects has a reasonable chance to reach $100B+ by 2030 from ~$19B (2025). If you're looking for my favorite names: Compounders: $MRVL, $SMTC CW Lasers: $SIVE, $MTSI, $AAOI Foundries $TSEM, Win Semi Substrates/Epitaxy: $AXTI, $SOI, $IQE Gold Standard: $LITE, $COHR The next TAM expansion multiplier is CPO/Scale Up, largely driven by SiPh and external CW lasers.

Okay chat. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the next 1350%+ 1Y return $SNDK or 2918% 1Y return $AXTI. If you have to choose 1 very high conviction, hyperbolic growth stock... What would it be and why?

Why do I have my own hate watch community now? Stock like $AXTI climbs 400% in the past 4 months. -&gt; Corrects by 14%. Salty commenter months later: "Get cooked" https://t.co/gfdVanYG43

Something that markets are finally starting to realize: Downstream: $NVDA invested $2B into $MRVL Celestial CPO program: $POET (Celestial’s Interposers): To ship 30,000 optical engines to ship this year from earnings today. $SIVE is the light source of Poet and Celestial for near/mid term Marvell photonics roadmap. Win Semi is the foundry for InP CW laser production. And even more upstream: $SOI / $AXTI for substrates and $IQE for epiwafers. This is the very start of the next photonics supercycle, at dirt cheap valuations. And it’s happening earlier than markets and institutions expected in 2026, with Nvidia frontrunning this entire shift. 99.9% of people see the changes happening downstream with Marvell, but don’t realize yet where the supply shocks will happen upstream.

Pls stop tagging me in stuff where random retail investors or journalists tries doing an analysis on $AXTI or $SIVE. For $AXTI: Majority of folks have 0 clue what they’re talking about. Samsung Foundry or $LITE InP fab are completely different parts of the supply chain and this is like conflating NAND and DRAM as memory. Even talking about Sumitomo displacing AXT means they don’t understand the upstream extraction/processing/crucible bottlenecks that InP substrate level players like $COHR or Sumitomo don’t do. For $SIVE: This is mass inflection point of CPO scale up 2027 onwards. I have idiots out there with no understanding of photonics looking at gross margin, burn rate, and former revenue numbers for previous years or even the current year. For the biggest architectural inflection 2027 onwards. If you look at $MRVL Celestial point its starting volume ramp 2027 and exponentially increasing 2028, 2029. That’s why I said $SIVE can be a $10B+ company one day since it’s looking at forward growth and this is the earliest out on. What I do is find alpha: This is what markets might have mispriced like all the analysts saying 14-17% fwd growth with $RPI. Then I modeled 55% and it turned out to be 58%. One is a photonics bottleneck for a reason. The other is designed into Jabil and Celestial for a reason.

Bruh wtf... Everyone was doubting me on $RPI, calling it a "Meme Stock"??? I literally projected 48-55% forward revenue growth and backed it up with fundamentals. While all the analysts were saying 14-17% and news outlets were saying "Meme Stock"?? And they updated $RPI to 58% projected Y/Y growth after earnings. Spot on and vindicated like $AXTI. Especially when I projected 3-4X industry growth estimates. Now $RPI is at ~19x-23.8x fwd p/e, with revenue acceleration due to OpenClaw.

Introducing the Strait of $AXTI: 20% of the world's total global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. It is the single most critical chokepoint in the global energy trade. Now... Double That with $LITE and $GOOGL instead of South Korea/Japan as recipients? Welcome to $AXTI. They control 40% of the InP supply chain. Both in the raw materials and processing. Two separate different bottlenecks (think of Iran producing oil, then shipping it through the Strait). So, if you 2x the chokepoint with the Hormuz oil bottleneck (but on AI industry level for photonics, instead of Country economies): You suddenly realize AXT's chokepoint (and China) on the photonics market. The current valuation is derived from strategic control. Then the main value comes when AXT exerts its control with price hikes: Since the AI buildout with photonics has no other choice at scale.

@AntonisProtop You must be new here with $AXTI if you haven’t experienced 15-25% daily drawdowns

There’s clearly some market outperformers despite index’s and mega caps from $META / $MSFT crashing. This probably signals institutions rotation or an extremely strong up and coming sector. The obvious one is into CPO/ELS supply chains. My personal picks were: $TSEM / Win Semi- TSM of photonics $AAOI / $SIVE / $COHR / $LITE- Light Sources $SOI / $AXTI - Substrates $IQE - Epiwafers But of course there are larger names out there like $MRVL, Sumitomo, $AVGO.

I think I nailed the institutional bottleneck rotation. -> Caught the tail end of memory name rise with $SNDK, Samsung, SK Hynix, $MU -> Frontran institutions with photonics with names like $AAOI, $AXTI $LITE, $COHR. -> Doing it again now by adding heavily toward SiPh, ELS, and CPO: $SIVE, $TSEM, $SOI, $AEHR, Win Semi, and others. Of course if you want to play it safe: $MRVL (captive), $AVGO (captive), $TSM, and $NOK all do it as well, but they're larger players. And getting direct exposure to the next supercycle is ideal. I still think there's tons of room to grow for memory to EML optical transceivers, but the largest boom is at the start/inflection point of a new architectural cycle. Macro messing up some trades aside, expecting capital rotation soon toward CPO / ELS supply chains. TLDR from analyst note: The AI infrastructure investment supercycle follows a strict "bottleneck resolution" sequence: Compute/GPUs (2023) -> Memory/HBM (2024) -> Interconnect/Networking (2025+). Translation: "We judge that the third investment cycle of the AI value chain has officially begun. Following GPUs (2023) and HBM (2024), post-2025, optical interconnects will become the fastest-growing core segment. 2027–2028 will be a critical inflection point where CPO commercialization. 1.6T standardization, and Scale-Up optical transitions align, structurally expanding the TAM of related industries" Some takeaways: 1. CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) is moving from the lab to commercial mass production 2. 2027-2028 is the major structural inflection point (good idea to frontrun this now in 2026 from testing with $AEHR to ELS with $SIVE or packaging with $POET). 3. The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for optical components, materials, and testing equipment is expected to structurally expand 3x to 5x (I think this is sandbagging a bit).

Personalized AI medicine will likely be huge. Nobody wants to die early. Combining $HIMS to $TEM has immense potential. Here's just one example with Gitlab's CEO: > In 2023, Sijbrandij was diagnosed with osteosarcoma > In July 2024, he announced the cancer had returned, despite multiple treatments > By late 2024, he had reached the absolute end of standard of care medical options. > Rather than accepting death, Sijbrandij decided to treat his cancer the same way he built GitLab as an engineering problem > He began feeding ChatGPT massive amounts of his personal medical data from scans, blood test results, and tissue sample data. > ChatGPT and AI made novel targeted treatments after identifying mutations, then how to attack them > From there, he applied for unapproved, experimental drug and received it > The approach worked. Sijbrandij managed to stall and turn around a terminal prognosis with AI. We've seen this success story with Gitlab's CEO ( $TEM was explicitly listed the partner he used for the bulk RNA sequencing of his tumor ). As well as someone curing their own dog with AI recently. The potential if you can combine $HIMS (DTC distribution network) and $TEM (Personalized sequencing and AI treatment) into a scalable product is massive (though extremely challenging). The entire human population is the TAM. And similar to the $AXTI InP situation with hyperscalers: People will pay anything to not die (bottleneck). This is just a hint into where the future of healthcare is heading.

Glad it’s helpful. When I say $SIVE reminds me of $LITE, this is kinda what I’m thinking about in the back of my mind. I also saw people try to model finite or steady compounding TAM (like $AXTI) rather than expansion or bottleneck game theory, which is the wrong approach for these niche supply chain chokepoints

Can't $SIVE just pull a $LITE and TAM expansion down the ELS stack? I'm getting early stage $LITE flashbacks (Oclaro, NeoPhotonics, Cloud Light)... Here's my thesis/idea: on how Sivers can capture the ~$300-$400 ELS (from $50-100 arrays) and become a $10B+ company. How this plays out: -> Sivers is needs funding. -> Get NRE prepay or PIPE (eg. $AXTI/Northland) -> Say "Hey, $AVGO and $LITE are going to choke your custom AI cluster margins". ----> get $META / $AMZN / $MSFT capital injection for multi-source supply for next ASIC clusters cause they're scared. Esp. with $NVDA funding $4B to securing supply from $LITE and $COHR... then PTSD from the current EML capacity bottleneck. It's easier than people think. -> US spinoff of photonics arm (markets don't like investing in legacy companies). - - - - - > This will likely work in 2026, bc CPO/photonics is hot, now and not like 2024-early 2025. -> Raise enough to automate wafer probers and fund the module NPI. -> Fab-lite test model: develop probe cards and test inhouse, but push capex to OSATs. -> Buy SiPh packaging IP (or just continue JDM with O-Net and $POET) -> Keep their Glasgow InP fab for in-house testing for iteration/raw epitaxial. -> Outsource lithography, etching, etc. stuff to Win Semi + others (don't do capex heavy things yourself) -> Then just $SIVE can just hand tested lasers and packaging IP to $FN And Poof. You have a independent, mass producible, high margin, ELS module as ELSFP becomes standard. Then they can do other stuff like buying DSP designs and start consolidating the tech stack. Instead of cheap $10 laser dies x 6 for a $50-$100 laser array, you have $400 hot swappable modules. Basically their starting point is owning one of the chokepoints moat in photonics on the laser level... Then they can go downstream like what $LITE did with EML and optical transceivers. TLDR: Sivers ( $SIVE ) holds a rare, independent chokepoint in InP lasers at the exact moment the world is transitioning to CPO. There's only a few independent companies in the world that can do this like $SIVE (eg. Sumitomo, $LITE, $COHR). But of course they need the funding to achieve TAM expansion and the right vision.

Faster compounds: $AAOI - 10x revenue ramp from optical transcivers h2 2027 $NBIS - 10x revenue ramp Q4 2026 $ARM - 5x revenue growth from their new AI CPU $MRVL - 2-3x revenue growth from $MSFT Maia Ramp. $AVGO - Long hyperscaler ASIC $LITE - Long OCS / Google TPU Win Semi - Foundry exposure to frontier industries $TSEM - Long photonics, backlogged SK Hynix - Memory exposure, extreme operating income ramp With some barbell exposure away from Hyperscaler capex aside from Amazon: $VNP - Long term rare earths for Western Supply chains $NEO (TCX) - Robotics Supply chains $AMZN - Robotics/AI cutting opex $CRCL - Stablecoin long $RDDT - Ridiculously high profit $GLD - Safe Hedge $IBIT - Halving 2028 $CVX Calls - Oil Hedge And maybe long term (you know it's coming): $INTC / $AMKR- Made in America supply chains $SOI - Silicon Photonics / CPO substrates. $RKLB - Long term call on Space industry Then pick one or two small cap moonshots: $SIVE - CW Laser Chokepoints or $IQE for Landmark rerating on restructuring were my two favorites. There's others I've mentioned like $AEHR for testing or $VPG for Optimus. How I actively manage my own stuff from $AXTI and others is a lot different risk profile than what others should do. Going full port into high-beta in this macro environment is not the best idea.

My portfolio has drawdowns from Macro as well. YTD is now 527%. After the index crashed -7%. - $AAOI “crashed” from $30 -> $100 -> $96… - $LITE “crashed” from $330-> $800 -> $702… - $AXTI “crashed” from $15 -> $70 -> $60… I’m not underestimating the War in Iran. This has serious consequences to liquidity/energy, so I’ve winded down margin. But if a company is going from $134m quarterly revenue to projected $1.54B a quarter from Made in America optical transceiver ramps... or if the tiny $3.6B company owns the materials supply chain for the hyperscaler photonics buildout... or a tiny laser supplier at $290m in $SIVE feeds to $MRVL CPO programs or Jabil transcivers... or a optical giant like $LITE is sold out of EML capacity until 2028... or a small European company in $SOI provides all the substrates required for silicon photonics / CPO. or a small European company in $IQE has latent reactor capacity multiple times what their valued at… or a memory company like SK Hynix is projected to make more than what their current market cap is in 3 years… There’s going to be tons of volatility on the way up, as markets realize their importance to supply chains But if you can’t bypass them to scale AI. Or they’re designed into the supply chains of $AMZN or $MSFT. Maybe they tend to outperform the market?

Great callout on $HIMX and now down -31.54% (accelerated by macro). This is a good lesson around chokepoints. They missed two things on this "Meme Stock": - Chokepoints can be designed out. - Chokepoint may not be material enough to translate into revenue like $AXTI. $AAOI on the other hand, has material TAM increase if you look at optical transciever projections that they've been bearish on. Largely disagreed with a large number of photonics picks (eg. calling for $POET at 7x the valuation over $SIVE the laser supplier). Or being bearish on $AAOI without looking at optionality + revenue ramp in a massive TAM. But we'll see who's right or wrong in a years time, most of the recent drop across the board was accelerated by macro (not whether a $SIVE or $HIMX thesis was wrong). But very interesting to see chip designers go the other way of plays mentioned by analysts.

This is why you need to have conviction before entering a trade. If you knew $SIVE positioning in the CW laser space to Jabil, $MRVL Celestial, and others for CPO. $250M MC as the light source chokepoint would be a joke. High confidence we’ll see this end up like $AXTI in a years time since it this will be the architectural paradigm for cpo scale up. Don’t care about volatility in the way up because I have conviction in how this plays out with photonics.

This crash today is a good reason why it's good to stay invested. -> $AAOI is still up 233%? -> $IQE is still up ~100%? -> $SIVE is still up 100%+? -> $LITE is still up ~88%? -> $TSEM is up ~48%? -> $SOI is still up 36%? Even after today my $AXTI positions are still up ~680% after the drop today? Yes, red days look rough if something drops 13% or 20% and especially so if you're later to enter. But if you keep thinking it's going to: -> drop from $500m and sit out -> drop from $1b and sit out -> drop from $2b and sit out -> drop from $3b and sit out By the time it's $4B and there's finally a correction 15%, you missed out on the entire rise. People can say "hindsight bias, you're posting after it went up". No, I've posted these are the returns after my original thesis, and I'm just riding the wave up. I keep getting trolls like these in my comments sections, but hope it doesn't make others panic. Not everything moves in a green line up, same applies to other sectors and stocks if there’s no material change. Risk exists. And portfolio sizing is very important. But if you’re going to enter higher beta names in bottlenecks especially with a clear thesis in mind. Need to learn to embrace the volatility for your thesis to play out.

Photonics are not having a fun time. Laser Companies from: $LITE, $SIVE, $COHR, $MTSI, $AAOI all down. Substrate, Foundries, and Epiwafer from: $IQE, $AXTI, $SOI, $TSEM all down. Almost everything is red. From 6% on lower beta like Coherent all the way to to 22%. Good lesson to learn: Embrace the volatility and don't use leverage. If a name can go up 25% in a day, it can also drop 20% today. Macro-driven liquidity vacuums and stop losses cause pretty violent swings. However, if companies like $LITE and $COHR are sold out until 2028... Or if you know $SIVE is coming next for CW lasers at a ~$340M MC and $AXTI will become a bottleneck for substrates. Crashes like these from Macro are often a way to exchange hands for those who can reposition long.

I’m curious… With $AXTI, $IQE, or $SIVE. And the many other photonics winners I’ve longed like $LITE that returned 100-1000% over the past few months. When is it time for the salty folks out there to admit… That my thesis are just right after all. Instead of downplaying it? $20B+ companies like $TSEM don’t just move up 70% in 2 weeks, unless institutions validated the thesis and found it compelling. Same with $AXTI, it wouldn’t have ran from $450M MC to $3.85B MC unless institutions found it compelling. I just spot these before others do, and post information synthesis/discovery. In these cases, retail has clearly frontrun institutions and made life changing returns. If the thesis were wrong, institutions can take the other end of the trade. Which they don’t. Everyone on X keeps asking for the next 1000%. And when there’s someone out there on X that posts multiple (for free) ideas. Posts a clear directional trade before the price even moved. -> then they do ~10x like $AXTI: They’re met with slander instead? Ever stop to think… maybe the thesis/idea was right after all?

TFW institutions realize how important $SIVE is in the CW/EML laser bottleneck. But have no positions… Sivers is up 220%+ so far, but I expect this to be my next personal 10x like $AXTI. https://t.co/DmqpkZ8Lqa

$SIVE is literally one of the only pure play public exposure to the (CW/EML) optical laser bottlenecks in the world. $LITE - $55B+ $COHR - $53B+ $MTSI - $17.8B+ $AAOI - $8.8B $SIVE- $400M You basically almost never see this... Genuinely shocked there's a small cap company out there like Sivers... That already is a qualified supplier to hyperscaler supply chains through Jabil, Marvel Celestial, O-Net, Ayar and others. This is one of the largest structural gaps in the market I've seen. I expect the market to keep repricing this every day like $AXTI as more institutions begin to realize this.

$SIVE has gotta be the highest upside stock I’ve seen in this market since $AXTI? No way markets missed the CW laser light source for Jabil, Marvell (Celestial via $POET), O-Net, Ayar ( $NVDA, Mediatek backed)… At a $140M valuation. ($350m now) Not only do you get the most direct laser exposure to future CPO scale up? But also this cycle’s 1.6T pluggables with $JBL (formerly Intel Silicon Photonics division) coming soon. With Win Semi bridge capacity scaling needed for hyperscaler supply chains. Don’t think 99.9% of people realized the sheer scale of this yet.

I keep this all over X: Stop trying to model bottlenecks with traditional metrics like P/S or P/E… For $AXTI: It’s like you found a restroom after eating 20 Tacos with Pinto Beans from Taco Bell. You’re out of the toilet paper… but it’s urgent. A random guy next to you offers you toilet paper for $20. But the toilet paper raw cost is $1 from Amazon. But because there’s no supply, and you need that Toilet Paper: You’re happy to pay $20. That’s $AXTI with the InP substrate + feedstock supply chain and hyperscalers.

So my 10x moonshot $AXTI ended up landing on the moon. If you felt like you missed the rocket: -> $SIVE is my personal favorite next 10x AXT moonshot at today's prices. -> $AAOI already up 4x since I've mentioned it, but I still think it can 4x again from these levels. If you want to play a bit safer: -> $VNP is the Western $AXTI -> $SOI is the $AXTI for silicon photonics/CPO, but it hasn't really ramped up yet. -> $IQE is more binary based on restructuring. -> $TSEM, $LITE, $COHR are the steadier compounders. I haven’t mentioned $VNP (5N Plus) much yet but it’s genuinely one of the most important companies in Western supply chains as the counterbalance to $AXTI. Basically it supplies: indium, germanium, gallium, tellurium, bismuth. Solar cells for LEO. Substrate feedstock for photonics. There's always more opportunities in the market!

$AXTI has now reached the legendary status of $69.69. Was expecting close to 10x returns in a year and half, not a few months… Everything from $AAOI to $SIVE are ridiculously outperforming. As for AXT valuations at $4B? Is it overvalued. Yes. Would hyperscalers pay $10B to secure their AI buildout? Yes. Lot of these bottlenecks can’t be valued with traditional metrics.

Not a fan of these types of posts, but I’ll do one today again: When a stock like $SOI drops 6% and reverses a lot of its gains this week: Nothing about SOI substrates thesis for silicon photonics / CPO level monopoly has changed. Unfortunately, the broader index (Paris Stock Index) crashed 9% this month and keeps going down. And broader macro from the War in Iran drives down a lot of names. Not every name I mention like $AXTI can go in a straight line up but they tend to be strong outperformers. I’ll post if my thesis materially changed. But if a stock price drops because of macro or just a slight correction after rising 400% like $AAOI. Or if $SIVE dropped 16% on Friday before rising 35% on Monday… Short term stock prices does not chance a thesis. And it shouldn’t to your conviction either. Especially with names, if I don’t mention them for a bit like, $IQE that’s just in a waiting period for restructuring or asset sales. Or $NBIS that’s in its silent buildout phase for extreme q4 revenue ramp. Performance like these are sometimes byproducts of macro. But if they can go down 10% in one week, they can go up 10% the next.

Everyone thought I was crazy when I gave $AXTI a $150 PT from $12-15. All the doubters suddenly disappeared? Reason my YTD is over 600%+ is because I identify the biggest chokepoints in hyperscaler supply chains before anyone else. Then go long. https://t.co/lgmu8p7F5a

$SIVE is starting to play out like my $AXTI thesis round 10? Up triple digits now. Really not sure how markets missed this one tbh? -> Laser supplier to Jabil… for 1.6T pluggable transceivers in the current supercycle. -> Laser supplier to Ayar / $MRVL celestial for CPO, in the upcoming supercycle. Literally all your laser suppliers from $MTSI to $LITE are $17-45B companies. $SIVE? Now only at ~$310M. High conviction long.

$SIVE is up 6.7% today. You know you're doing something right: When the entire market from KOSPI to Nikkei is red. While individual longs from $TSEM to $AXTI are green. It's clear that this is now a stock picker's market. As thematic individual names in Oil, Rare Earths, to Semis, that the world is fighting over... Have strongly outperformed the broader market.

Normally this goes in shower thoughts but will post main timeline today. $ALOY - Rare earth powders -> high-purity metals. Magnets used in the liquid cooling pumps $NB - Scandium, lightweight metal frames for server racks. $UURAF- Separation of rare earths. $ARA - Upstream feedstock for magnets $MEI - IAC deposit outside of China. $NTU - hard-rock heavy rare earths These are all more under the radar stuff like sub <$1B. Then for robotics supply chains I made this earlier: $UUUU - Processes monazite sand into high-purity Neodymium $MP - Extracting bastnäsite at Mountain Pass and vertically integrating into domestic NdFeB magnet manufacturing. $ALOY - Converting heavy rare earth oxides into defense-grade alloys and high-temperature metals like Samarium and Gadolinium $USAR- Process heavy rare earth elements and manufacture sintered NdFeB magnets $LYSDY -(Lynas Rare Earths Limited) - Only commercial producer of separated heavy rare earth elements outside of China. $NEO -(TSX): They are the only Western company commercially producing the actual NdFeB magnetic powders and alloys at scale right now. $ILU- (rare earths refinery): rare earths refinery for Australia $ARU- (ASX): "Ore-to-oxide" NdPr facility 2. Structural Metallurgy (Niobium, Vanadium, Titanium, Beryllium) $ATI - Dominant US producer of high-performance titanium and specialty alloys required for robotic joints. $CRS - US supplier of specialty structural alloys, including the high-strength steels, titanium, and magnetic $FCX - World's largest producer of Molybdenum, which is strictly necessary for the structural steel in planetary roller screws. $NB - Critical pure-play company developing the Elk Creek project in Nebraska, aimed at supplying domestic Niobium, Scandium, and Titanium $MTRN - Major global processor of Beryllium $LGO - Leading publicly traded processors of Vanadium $BMM - Onshore supply and processing for like Germanium and Gallium $VNP - Gallium, Germanium, and Indium for advanced sensors and electronics $TECK - Most significant producer of Germanium outside of China $ALB - Lithium extraction $EAF - High-purity Graphite for battery anodes $ALTM - Western lithium required to supply the batteries $SYR - Balama mine for Graphite $FCX - Humanoid requires up to 6.5 kilograms of copper $AW1 (ASX): Advancing the West Desert project in Utah, for domestic geological sources for high-grade Gallium and Indium I'm aware of a lot of more... It's just some are a little dangerous to mention geopolitically in case I broadcast vulnerabilities to geopolitical adversaries reading this (looking at you $AXTI) If you're going long on a western one 5n my favorite. Image source: Crossdock Insights, Visual Capitalist FYI this is not the pandoras box stuff. Just name dropping some interesting names informally before finishing up some research on a specific long idea. Critical elements required for semiconductor packaging and others close to near-total import reliance -> so prob influx of funding going toward it. Just informal thoughts

The World is fighting over: Oil, Rare Earths, and Semiconductors. The reason being... Every supply chain is being weaponized right now. And it so happens, US biggest geopolitical enemies own most of the chokepoints. I was one of the first to connect $AXTI's bottleneck to photonics + AI hyperscaler supply chains. But there are many more that I'm scared to broadcast, just due to national security vulnerabilities. But the thematic investments hold true: Massive amounts of funding will be poured into these three sectors to either go to war over them, secure them domestically, or engineer around them for 2026. As a theme, if your portfolio is not overweight into those three right sectors the entire world is fighting over... Maybe you're might be something wrong?

My thoughts today on $SIVE, at a ~$250M MC: Sivers is the future likely CW + laser array light source powering hyperscalers from $AMZN, $META, and $MSFT. At ~$250m... From confirmed clients, est. mapping: 1. Jabil ( $JBL ) LRO Transceivers (Former SiPH $INTC) -> $AMZN, $META, and other Hyperscalers. 2. Ayar -> AIChip/GUC -> $AMZN and other hyperscalers. 3. Enablence -> O-Net -> Asian Hyperscalers 4. And other unconfirmed customers. People have been asking me endless questions about today's volatility: If a stock can go up 20% it can do up 20% too. $AXTI had those +30%, -30% movements all the time (eg. Earnings -30% to $20, now at $60). And like AXT as you've seen, what matters is it has the likely potential to outperform long term. That's why it's important to develop your own conviction before entering any trade, so you don't need to ask me questions every day if you take it yourself. I personally have a long position and I do think Sivers has the potential to be a $5B+ company with Win qualification. Especially amid some analysts post today telling people to take profits on $SIVE: - If you just look at $COHR, $LITE and other light source valuations today, they're $40B+. - $SIVE pre-revenue advanced packaging counterparties are all $1B-$4B+. - And we have $SIVE as the future light source for hyperscaler supply chains and Jabil transceivers: At ~$250M. Just my personal opinion, but it's better to anchor conviction to the marketcap ($250M) as the light source for hyperscaler supply chains, than price fluctuations... Especially when institutions (~14.1% owned) are able to to shake the tree of a majority owned stock to build a position. This is why I've shared my thoughts about $AXTI or $SIVE early since I think it's possible for retail investors to frontrun institutions for the up and coming chokepoints in AI supply chains. And why I've shared hyperscaler supply chain mapping for $SIVE so people can build their own conviction on future light-source growth.

$LITE Transcript from Conference Call: "The thing that keeps me up at night most is: Substrates. Less so sort of reactors and getting the right tools into the fab, although it’s not a zero challenge." They basically went out and said $AXTI is the bottleneck for photonics. Especially if InP substrates keeps $LITE's CEO up at night. I've been mentioning it for the past few months, if AXT they control the substrate supply, they have a lot of pricing power over $LITE to $COHR and America's AI buildout. I've seen a ton of misinterpretation on X saying: "Seven-year agreement with Sumitomo". But they literally said there was supply tightness Today. And the agreement doesn't mean there will be enough supply for 7 years, especially when China export controls start to kick in on upstream feedstock/materials required by Japanese supply chains to make then. This is before Photonics has even started to ramp up. My $AXTI bottleneck thesis is playing out real time and we got new confirmation from $LITE that InP substrates is a bottleneck.

The Serenity Silicon Photonics / CPO ETF. YTD Returns of Each Index Stock: $IQE: +282.5% $AXTI: +246.6% Landmark: 167.54% $AAOI: +157.37% $SIVE: +113.08% $SOI: +103.54% $LITE: +100.27% $LWLG: +92.35% $VIAV: +88.71% $AIXA: +73.92% $AEHR: +70.4% $CIEN: +67.67% $FORM: +60.67% $FOCI: +60.44% $CAMT: +49.13% $GLW: +46.77% $SMHN: +45.94% Fujikura: +43.89% $COHR: +41.81% $KEYS: +40.48% $TSEM: +36.42% $ASX: +29.89% $MTSI: +28.34% $NOK: +27.5% Shin-Etsu: +27.33% $ONTO: +26.28% $BESI: +24.71% $UMC: +18.11% $INTC: +17.27% $OXINF: 15.03% $FN: +12.79% Eoptolink: +11.82% $TSM: +6.00% $HIMX: +5.39% $SMTC: +4.11% Sumitomo: +3.67% $CSCO: +3.25% Innolight: +.33% $MRVL: +.16% $APH: -6.48% $MXL: -7.62% $AVGO: -7.99% $POET: -12.99% $TEL: -14.93% This is retrospectively, but as you've known I've been in a lot of the winners for awhile (eg. Top 6/7 like $AXTI or $LITE aside from Landmark). However, if you were curious if you invested in the photonics trend as a whole at the start of the year. The equal weighted return? 50.033% I expect the Photonic Supercycle to last over the next several years, and many of these names to be large beneficaries going forward. Especially as CPO is used to scale AI deployments. Photonics is the new architectural paradigm for AI.

I may have outperformed the index just a tiny bit? It’s as simple as riding the Photonics and Memory Supercycles from $AXTI to $SNDK. Just doing this for fun now. https://t.co/VkzcDTIE85

Holy ****, my $AXTI thesis was legendary? AXT is up another 20% today to ATHs at $58. Happy I got this right, gains in a short time blew away holding $NVDA over the years. https://t.co/xEJ7DtgFaP

Year to Date return from Jan to March: +564.36%. I’m speed running last year’s 600%+ returns by finding undiscovered AI bottlenecks. And picking the winners. - 500%+ unrealized gains on $AXTI. - $AAOI 3x’d in 3M or $IQE 2x in 1M. - $LITE close to 100%+. And I expect large capital rotation into silicon photonics + CPO names: Like $SOI, $AEHR, or $SIVE this year. (They’re up close to ~70-100%, but have a long way to go) Then, this is compounded by misc longs, such as $CRCL that increased 148% in 1 month. $NBIS that close to doubled from $70 back to $120. $EWY IV trade is up 50-70% and names like $XLU are up 50%+. My biggest loser YTD is $RDDT since my cost average was $148. Some of the misc picks like $INFQ, $VPG, $AVAV, $LPTH are not doing as well. But as I’ve mentioned aside from Reddit (which I had high concentration in), a lot of my other picks I’m not as familiar with, I have less concentration in: But all my higher conviction picks like $TSEM have been strongly compounded recently. And what matters is I get more things right than wrong, especially in my higher concentration names. Majority of my YTD returns are actually unrealized since I don’t exit my longs, unless there’s material changes: But I did realize a lot of gains at the beginning of the year post Venezuela conflict, as I identified some winners like Gold Reserve that doubled in a day. Sadly I did sell some Asian names like Nittobo or Macronix that both went up 100-200%+ to rotate capital around the time of the Iran conflict… those ended up going a lot higher afterwards. I swing trade a lot of misc names like in fintech or write CSP on the side. Hence why I’m able to compound to 500%+. While individual names are only up 100-200% (just keep doubling + rotating). But if you want to ride the next trend: Most obvious one is Photonics Supercycle if you just look at $AAOI earnings call or $LITE Nvidia GTC call for next few years. And the current one is the Memory Supercycle if you just look at $SNDK returns. And as you’ve seen after my original $AXTI thesis or now Soitec: These names keep going in a vertical line up, as everyone suddenly now realizes its importance to the next paradigm shift for AI. My strategy is identifying structural bottlenecks in the AI supply chains before the market discovers them.

The more I look into Sivers < $SIVE / $SIVEF > the more I wonder: How is the laser company for the hyperscaler photonic supply chains… Valued at ~$200M USD MC? All the companies that buy and repackage their lasers are now worth $1-4B+? Pre-product SV AI companies are worth billions? Pre revenue Photonic companies in development phase line $LWLG are worth $1B+? Yet the company that makes the silicon photonics/CPO scale up & scale out work. And has actual revenue. ~$200M… Reminds me of early $AXTI when I had zero clue how a company worth $500M MC controlled the InP substrate/feedstock supply chain for photonics. Either I’m completely wrong… or this is the most undervalued and unknown photonics company on the market.

The upcoming CPO / Silicon Photonics Bottleneck Cheat Sheet: $SIVE, Sumitomo, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO, $MTSI, $AAOI - Light Source (CW DFB Lasers) $TSEM, $GFS, $UMC, $TSM, $INTC - SiPh foundry $NOK, $CIEN, $CSCO, $COHR - DCO $HIMX, FOCI (3363.TWO) - Micro-lens + Fiber Arrays $POET - Optical Interposers $SOI, $AXTI, Shin-Etsu - Substrates $FN, $ASX, Innolight, Eoptolink - Optical Packaging and Assembly $MTSI, $SMTC, $MRVL, $MXL - Analog/Mixed-Signal ICs $LWLG - Speculative Modulator Materials. $GLW, $APH, $TEL, $FIT, Fujikura - Connectors and Fibers $FORM, $KEYS, $VIAV, $AEHR- Test & Measurement $BESI, $SMHN, $ONTO, $CAMT - Advanced Packaging & Hybrid Bonding Many are private companies from Lightmatter, Ayar, Ranovus and others. Now... Everyone is asking... How do you profit? If you look at the forecast for CPO TAM, it's a straight line up, and next year is inflection point for CPO mass deployment. The alpha is capturing the rotation: From the current EML bottlenecks ( $LITE, $COHR type) to SiPh / CW DFB architectural winners for CPO. Highest upside potential are the ones that aren't included in current cycles. But that are in the next. Companies like $SOI, $SIVE, or $AEHR are perfect examples. Ride the current pluggable bottleneck like $AAOI. But the alpha is frontrunning institutions with the next CPO bottleneck. The capital rotation is inevitable.

Woah, Macronix (TPE: 2337) is out here casually outperforming $AXTI? 201.04% vs. 188% Year to Date return, feels bad. Macronix does look like the mini $SNDK of Taiwan at a $7.89B MC... They're the world’s largest suppliers of NOR flash memory, SLC/MLC NAND. So they get free price-hike reign now off legacy nodes that Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron left behind.

Normally don’t respond to trolls, but the hypocrisy on this platform is pretty impressive. Random X retail: “Why didn’t you tell me about $LITE before it went up 1000% already?” Me: “Posts my thesis about the next possible $LITE at the very beginning, without paywalls.” X retail: 😡, “I’m going to pay $400 for a paywall to long $ADBE and short $PLTR instead”. Especially after my $AXTI thesis that already went from $12->$50 in 3 months... I distribute all my thought processes for free. And markets can price in any alpha immediately or however they want. (I get things wrong as well, especially with names like $ETOR that crashed from $65 to $33). However, instead of the original model where analysts sell a thesis for $2000+ to other hedge funds to slowly accumulate. Then retail buys at $40 billion+ as seen with $LITE. My account’s been growing because I’m one of the few analysts to break that model. And I distribute novel information synthesis for free to everyone. Stocks are a positive sum game where everyone benefits if a thesis is directionally correct.

$AXTI is now above $50+. I was the first to identify it as the next major bottleneck for the AI buildout with photonics. Did you listen anon? https://t.co/pPkFqZXmuC

I’m long $SIVE at $140M. I believe this is the next $LITE that markets and institutions missed. $SIVE makes InP CW DFB lasers. Closest comparison is $LITE in the current EML laser bottleneck. But instead of supplying to Innolight/Eoptolink for current optical transceivers cycles. They supply the lasers to $POET Starlight, Ayar SuperNova. And others for the future CPO/silicon photonics architectures spearheaded by $NVDA. Current valuations make 0 sense to me personally. 

 $POET is advanced packaging for $SIVE type lasers… But $POET commands worth 11x+ more than the company making the laser itself?

 It’s feels like valuing a more advanced $FN (~$20B) packaging at $400B when $LITE is valued at $40B. 

 So now at $130m:

- - You have a likely mini $LITE like laser supplier to Marvell Celestial + hyperscalers through $POET. 

 - Laser supplier to Ayar ( $NVDA, $INTC ), though they do multi source with $LITE, Sumitomo, $MTSI. And other potential up and coming suppliers potentially like Lightmatter that they’ve name dropped (eg. Q2 2023 earnings). This is unconfirmed but supply chain BOM is confidential. 

 On top, for revenue, they expected $453M "pipeline next few years”. 

And, they have capacity expansion through WIN: “Win Semi foundry qualification in progress for volume production from Laser designs from Sivers." 

Sivers feels the silicon photonics/CPO version of $LITE, with actual rapidly growing customers like Celestial through $POET, Ayar, with more to come. 

I wouldn’t have liked it last year, but just 3 weeks ago, they refinanced all their debt successfully to $12M convertible loan (10.85%) and a $5M term loan (12%), which cleans up debt.

 It’s $17m total, which feels like nothing to US markets when $AAOI is doing a $500m ATMs every other week. Best of all, this is their pure play inp laser segment for silicon/photonics + cpo. 

Their Lidar segment is ramping up and they have $53-138M projected revenue coming in. 

Downside risk: 
- execution (as always) 
- dilution to scale up capacity to compete with $LITE and others. - $LITE, $COHR competition on scale after $NVDA just gave them $4B
- CPO ramp gets delayed. 

I have no clue how, $LWLG, a pre-revenue science project with $TSEM, is valued at $1B+ MC. 

Or how $POET, is worth ~9-10x more than its laser supplier. 

 When $SIVE, the mini $LITE equivalent for CPO/Silicon photonics, is valued at $140M. I do believe this is largely undiscovered by institutions, since this is some random company in OMX Nordic Exchange (similar to micro $AXTI before I started posting about the inp substrate bottleneck). 

 But I do think it will get a lot of institutional attention as Celestial and Ayar scale up. Especially if $POET and $SIVE gets qualified with other customers. 

 If CPO completely replaces pluggable transceivers in the next generation of hyperscaler architectures. Sivers, with possible WIN Semi qualifcation and if they become the multi-source lasers for NVIDIA, Marvell, Intel, and Broadcom architectures, can be strongly rerated. Just as how $LITE did today going from $16 -> $622. This is just my personal thesis I'm sharing, DYOR/NFI. TLDR: InP Lasers are the current bottleneck in photonics as seen with $LITE valuations. 

 $SIVE looks like the mini $LITE for the upcoming CPO/Silicon Photonics ramp. 

I personally took long position in $SIVE, as I believe they’re a large beneficiary of the upcoming silicon photonic/CPO architectural changes by $NVDA (with GTC cataylst). 

 The upside here just way too compelling for me personally as the next possible $LITE.

Just a reflection on my accomplishments this year. Growing to 100K+ followers in the first three months of 2026: - Forecasted the upcoming InP substrate/feedstock bottleneck for photonics - Identified $AXTI as the main beneficiary (up 4x+) - China's suddenly enforced immediate export controls on Japan, targeting InP compounds -> shortly after my thesis identifying the China bottleneck and Sumitomo/hyperscaler vulnerabilities got a few million views... Not sure if they read my post, sorry if they did? - Predicted volatility increase of the South Korean Market and also mapped that into an IV arbitrage trade idea with $EWY - Got it spot on a week later with the Bank of Korea citing upcoming volatility - Had Bloomberg, Reuters, FT, and other news outlets citing my thesis post about $RPI - Bunch of European news sites talking about why I like $IQE - Had a bunch of French news sites and analysts from Citi, Kepler, putting out slightly aggressive notes about my Soitec ( $SOI ) TLDR thesis post. - Identified the main beneficiaries of Venezuela regime change like Gold Reserve, with the stock going up 100%+ the day after. - Published information synthesis on how much Bitcoin Venezuela might have had, and it blew up with a ton of media coverage like CNN and others! Lot of my other thesis posts like $LITE ended up playing out this year after mapping out $GOOGL TPU BOM and doubling. But it's not as cool as the ones above! In just two months! I like to stay humble, but I do want to brag from time to time. And best of all, retail investors were all early to a lot of these trends this time because of information discovery + free distribution over X. Excited to see what's to come in the future and I'm happy X gave me this opportunity to share my thoughts.

I realized by the amount of bookmarks. I lowkey dropped a banger ETF? AI Displacement Equal Weighted YTD: $AXTI: +191.53% $AAOI: +144.47% $SNDK: +140.38% $SOI: +114.3% $LITE: +61.22% $AEHR: +60.97% $BE: +56.56% $VRT: +47.42% Samsung: +42.8% $TER: +37.99% $MU: +35.1% Sk Hynix: +34.42% $NBIS: +25.57% $COHR: +24.92% Mediatek: +17.01% $INTC: +16.23% $ASML: +15.63% Advantest: +11.78% $TSM: +5.85% $COPX: +4.56% $TSEM: +2.44% $MRVL: -1.71% $NVDA: -4.55% $AVGO: -7.32% These are just the first names that came to my head. I own a lot of these personally (and don't own others like $NVDA or $BE ) but included them anyway. But honestly, I'd be happy to equal weight all these names if I weren't actively managing my portfolio concentrations. I expect the AI Displacement ETF to keep rising: As they're the largest beneficiaries of scaling compute and inference for artificial intelligence.

The news is pretty heartbreaking: $META 20% layoffs $ORCL layoffs $AMZN 600,000 workers long term layoffs as they get replaced by robotics and AI. This is a dystopian future. Companies end up with record profits, without the cost of human labor. The only way to benefit: Investing in AI as a hedge. The next few years feels like the main way to escape the permanent underclass, caused by AI displacement. The return on equity derived from AI will go to the shareholders. While the gap between those who live paycheck to paycheck, not invested in stocks. Will continue to grow. This is not the future. - Opus 4.6 is good enough to replace most software engineers today. - Waymo has started to replace taxi drivers in places like SF today. - We know $TSLA Humanoids are coming next as they’re widespread in China, today. This is happening now. Disruptions in Iran are only temporary to the accelerating AI buildout. AI has hit the inflection point, and looks inevitable. You’re already seeing US job revisions down close to 1 Million, which is staggering. And we’re seeing the newest LLMs be built by their previous models, as AI approaches the singularity (AI led recursive growth). Investing in where the compute and hardware needed to run the AI: From the datacenter/power/grid sector: $NBIS, $XLU, $VRT, $BE Photonics sector needed to scale AI: $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI, $TSEM Semi sector needed for the chips: $NVDA, $TSM, $ASML, $INTC Memory sector for the chips: $MU, $SNDK, SK Hynix, Samsung ASICs for hyperscaler AI inference: $AVGO, $MRVL, Mediatek Yields sector to make sure the chips work: $TER, $AEHR, Advantest Along with the raw materials or substrates needed for AI: $AXTI, $COPX, $SOI And many others become the single, largest, hedge against widespread AI displacement. Whoever owns the means of compute (bottlenecks, materials, datacenters): Owns the future of AI.

Don't think any "Analyst" from Citi or Kepler should be surprised why $SOI: A 1X book CPO/Silicon Photonics Substrate virtual monopoly (now ~1.4). Gets re-rated 40%+. Especially after a digestable analysis gets distributed for people to build their own conviction on. Times have changed: Institutions want dumb, popular "influencers" to publish longs on Paypal and other overbought stocks. Or encourage folks on WSB to buy 0DTE call options on $TSLA. I'm doing supply-chain research on an undervalued billion dollar European bottlenecks/chokepoints. Then gave that research away for free. Not paywalled for $2000+ behind institutional research notes. Free. I'm educating retail on my own thought process regarding supply chain bottlenecks, photonics, and fundamentals. Then putting that into a simple enough thesis, so they can form their own opinions. And for the first time, retail is able to front-run institutions on fundamental bottlenecks. Just look at $AXTI: I posted at ~$500m valuation for every retail investor. And now, institutions are piling in, sending it to $2.6 billion+ as the fundamental InP substrate provider to the photonics industry. This is the quiet part said out loud: When a free and popular X account successfully educates retail on highly strategic, fundamentally undervalued tech companies like Soitec: It completely disrupts the institutions' ability to paywall research and frontrun retail investors. There’s no reason to downplay the trend. I believe stocks are a positive sum game, so there's no reason to gatekeep information.

Just looked outside my little bubble. Majority of folks on X are: - posting deep red portfolios. - doomposting 1W charts - fearing about oil Feels like most of my individuals stock 1W returns are way in the green? $AXTI up +46.9% $SOI up +48.59% $NBIS up +29.59% $IQE up +27.92% $TSEM up +13.99% And so on… maybe luck?

I've been the first few to cover many supply chain photonic names. Most are up 100-400%+ since I've posted. Here's the TLDR overview of my thesis posts: “Safest” Longs as of Today: - $TSEM (Tower Semi) - $SOI (Soitec) - $COHR - Defensible compounders over time. Soitec - Substrate monopoly over silicon photonics / CPO architectural ramp at dirt cheap valuation (after recent 40%+ rise maybe still 1.4x book) Tower Semi - P/E in the 10's for 2028, 70%+ capacity booked already, $NVDA architectural partner, and basically the pure play $TSM of photonics. Coherent - Basically does everything from materials/substrates to lasers to transceivers in photonics. As well as fundamental supplier to many other verticals. Most High Beta/Extreme Growth Longs: $AXTI - InP duopoly with Sumitomo (that getting export controlled), upstream feedstock duopoly with Vital. Basically at the top of the entire photonics food chain is AXT. There's certainty export control risks, but my thesis is that if AXT goes down, the photonic buildout with AI goes down. So might as well go long on AXT. $AAOI - 10x revenue ramp into 2027. Laser -> Design -> Assembly, Made in America. Main uncertainty is execution, scaling laser capacity that they've bought from $COHR, etc. Demand from hyperscalers are all there. Can they deliver? I'd take the risk. $IQE - Basically completely dependent on restructuring and clearing debt (~$200M MC). Known $LITE supplier for epiwafers, and their main competitor was Landmark with a $3.5B+ valuation. The latent capacity is there with reactors, but they basically need to pull off a successful pivot over to photonics and cut off legacy drag for 10x rerating. Highest risk out there, but maybe worth the reward.s Long $GOOGL TPU Ecosystem: $LITE - Basically very high BOM related to optical due to OCS monopoly for Google. If you think Google TPU is a trillion dollar program that might end up like $NVDA, go long on $LITE. Google has $175-180B capex planned for 2026, and their CTO for AI Infra said they plan to up that Y/Y, probably spending $1 trillion in the next 8 years. If that holds up, $LITE is extremely undervalued relative to forward potential. Of course the supply lasers to other hyperscalers too, but I'd say it's more heavily tethered to Google growth. _ There's a ton of others out there I've covered like: $POET - I'm personally not long, but $400M balance sheet gives it good cushion. Just found Celestial from $MRVL ramp was too far out, eg. $500 million 2028, $1 billion 2029 projections, for revenue to be too material as of 2026. It largely depends if their interposers get other hyperscaler qualifications rather than backdooring through Marvell, which was the main bull case. $HIMX- I did find this thesis to be slightly compelling as a likely $TSM COUPE supplier. But personally, I preferred $SOI, and would just put more concentration into that (since Soitec known supplier already to basically everything silicon photonics, and is just coming out of a downturn). There’s a lot more like $NOK, $SHMN, that are interesting, but I’ve personally out concentration into the ones I find most compelling. As “crowded names” like $LITE, it does not mean there’s no upside left. It just happens to be more priced in until there’s new news. There's a lot of "critical suppliers" but there's a difference between importance in the supply chain... And converting that into extreme revenue growth eg. $AAOI -> $4.5 billion in revenue. But for TLDR photonics exposure, my portfolio looks similar to this: High Concentration (Safer) $TSEM foundry, $SOI substrate, $COHR everything Mix of Long + CSP (High Volaility): $AXTI substrate/feedstock, $IQE epiwafer, $AAOI transceiver supply chain Then Long Google with $LITE

There’s $TSEM, my safer photonics compounder. Then there’s my race horse on steroids, with a rocket ship attached: $AXTI. My positions are up over 550%+. And AXT is up another 10.38% today. $NVDA returns got left in the dust, as identifying AXT as the InP bottleneck few months ago was generational wealth to many.

Top 10 common fallacies I keep seeing again and again on X. And some of the most important things I look out for too when doing research: 1. Being in "crowded" names like $LITE or $COHR does not mean these names won't go higher. (Just look at Nvidia throughout 2022 -> 2026). 2. Don't conflate bottlenecks and critical companies in supply chains like SpaceX or Nvidia with stock market returns. What matters is how it translates to material operating income. The reason I mention $AXTI, is likely price hikes from being that bottleneck. 3. Insider Sales are the extreme noise. You will never see me quote that anywhere to derive projections and what the MC should be at. 4. Repeat after me. TA is only an indicator, not a bible. Please stop posting TAs underneath my Soitec posts to say "overextended!!!" without any reference to fundamentals, catalysts, or macro. TA's especially, mean nothing when there's extreme fundamental changes (eg. $6B in share dilution or upcoming IPO float lockup like $BULL, $CRCL). 5. DILUTION IS DIFFERENT. ATMs are different than convertible notes that are different than loans. It's extremely nuanced. Some lead to more equity returns than others that are more harmful (eg. $IREN $6B ATM). Float dynamics, ATM sizes relative to marketcap, and all others need to be accounted for. 6. Markets are forward looking. It's just a matter of how far in the future they look. Stop only posting previous revenue guidance only to justify valuations pricing in forward growth eg. $TSEM forward growth for photonics ramp. 7. Revenue/Gross Margins/Profit are extremely, extremely nuanced. Profit can be hid in tax writeoffs, and margins can be hid in other parts of the income statement like opex, or in depreciation. So posting "gross margins/profit" (eg. $IREN) and using that to justify it vs. other neoclouds means nothing if the accounting is not normalized 8. Net Income is not the same as GAAP Net Income. True profitability from companies like $SNAP are hid by things like stock-based compensation. When a company reports non-GAAP net income of $500 million to the media, their official SEC-filed GAAP net income could be a $150 million loss because of SBC. 9. Float Dynamics + Dilution are important. You can say "oh this company is $150M MC, 30m profit" but if you're forgetting there's a massive dilution overhead at X strike, then all your research gets thrown out the drain. 10. Make sure to factor in REVENUE GROWTH/TAM. You can grow a company 200% one year, but if TAM maxes out like in Fintech then revenue growth eventually falls off the cliff. Hence why $RKLB gets premiums for infinite Space TAM growth while other companies in fintech growing at 40% Y/Y don't.

As expected from my original $AXTI thesis: InP substrates is a massive bottleneck for photonics. And: 7N Indium High Purity Indium (non standard) has reached all time highs on SMM, recently. $AXTI is very. highly. correlated. Tracking derivatives on SMM and other markets is likely the best insight you'll get into performance. Demand does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. We haven't gotten to the point of NAND-style price hikes yet either.

$NVDA GTC is next week. And markets are wondering what names will be announced with Nvidia’s new silicon photonics architecture. > $TSEM works with $NVDA for silicon photonics > $NVDA invested in both $COHR and $LITE to secure supply chains > $AXTI a bottleneck for InP substrates > Soitec ( $SOI ) a monopoly around SOI substrates for silicon photonics Hmmm. There’s zero clues to what companies might be in the supply chain of $NVDA! Better wait for the event to find out?

Turns out markets like hidden photonics monopolies? Soitec is up 16% intraday. If you look at the CPO photonics architectural ramp led by $NVDA: It’s parabolic. $SOI is likely a name that people can hold for many years as the substrate monopoly for CPO. And best of yet, there’s the upcoming $NVDA GTC announcement next week. Which would likely signal to institutions to start looking into players they missed like $AXTI, and now $SOI.

Changed my mind about Soitec ( $SLOIF ) and took a sizable position ~43 for CPO exposure. $NVDA GTC next week biggest catalyst pushing photonics and this architecture. ~1.5B euros MC. Trading at 1x book value and ~2x P/S (very depressed valuations) Genuine monopoly over substrates side for CPO (typically very premium valuations for photonics + even extra premium for monopoly status) Algos and analysts might get confused over market share but it’s an actual monopoly over SOI substrates since they give licenses to other players like Shin Etsu for diversification sake eg. $TSM doesn’t like just 1. I don’t think institutions will wait until next year to frontrun these names like Soitec or $TSEM (and most probably haven’t even heard of these names like $AXTI yet) This timing would be buying the likely bottom of the depressed smartphone cycle, while getting full upside of CPO mid-late 2027 + $NVDA GTC catalyst next week. I personally think it’s a 3x from here so I went long.

Jim Cramer: “Just impossible Day to Make Money”. Today: $AXTI: +15.08% $AAOI: +11.5% $HIMS: +6.05% $LITE: +7.06% $SNDK: +6.12% $IQE: +19.08% SK Hynix: 4.38% $MU: +4.65% $COHR: +4.86% This is following the previous post about “$150-200” Oil on Sunday. The Cramer indicator strikes again.

Hope you listened to my $AXTI thesis anon? https://t.co/d5eg0BIhlG

$AAOI is now up 4x since $30. Every photonics name from $AXTI to $LITE I’ve done a thesis on increased 2x, 3x, or 4x if you listened anon? Hope the Crude Oil to $200 or $IREN troll “insider sales” doomposters didn’t make you panic sell your positions at $80. This is why you hold through volatility and look at underlying fundamentals. Not every company can go from 450m revenue to $4.5B in just one years time.

$ORCL likely $AAOI hyperscaler client per Rosenblatt analyst. When I first posted about $AAOI everyone had extreme doubts like on my thesis post on $AXTI. But don’t take it from me. My exact same sentiment I shared after earnings is now echoed by other institutional analysts: “The company’s sub-$8B market cap is too low when its 2027 revenue potential is $4B “ - Rosenblatt. Likely a long way to go for repricing photonic names given revenue ramp.

Leading photonic names do not concern itself with Crude Oil prices spiking. $AXTI +14.13% $AAOI +6.73% $LITE +10.22% $COHR +3.39% Photonics is the next paradigm of AI, the War in Iran doesn’t change that. https://t.co/Xznwa2VDuT

$AAOI's 10x projected rev surge in optical transceiver demand by 2027 for $4.3B ARR off a $5.5B MC... Is enormous. $LITE and $COHR might be crowded, but. We'll likely see rotation upstream like: $ASML-type suppliers: - Aixtron (ETR: AIXA): ~75% share for inp MOCVD - $VECO - MOCVD and MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) systems, probably second. - Oxford Instruments: Supplier to $AAOI and $COHR for plasma etch and deposition systems Merchant Epiwafer Fabs (Foundaries for photonics): - $IQE: largest outsourced compound semiconductor epiwafer manufacturer. Basically $TSM of photonics world but lot of legacy drag. - LandMark Optoelectronics: Most direct, pure-play for optical transceiver unit growth - IntelliEPI (TPE: 2462): MBE rather than MOCVD to create high-performance InP epiwafers Raw Substrate Suppliers (base materials): - $AXTI/ Sumitomo : everyone knows by now Transceiver ramp projections is staggering, and this is only 2027. It's likely exponentially increasing into 2028. $AAOI's record-breaking earnings signals the start of a new paradigm for photonics, it's a great idea to get exposure.

@FractalVeritas Talking about $AAOI in this, not $AXTI. But I did point out $AXTI before it went up 3x in the last two months.

After earnings, $AAOI could easily be a $25B-$30B company next year from $5B if they hit their projections. And they're one of the only "Made in America" (Sugarland, Texas) companies out of - $LITE (global) - $COHR (global) - $FN (Thai) - $AVGO (global) - Innolight (China), and Eoptolink (China). So they likely get that "America" premium like $INTC compared to $TSM and $MU compared to Sk Hynix. But from revenue: FY Revenue: $456 million 2027 ARR by : $4.536B (~900%+ growth). Off high 30's - low 40% projected margins + hyperscaler qualifications. This is wild. But there was a $250M ATM, but that's typically pennies compared to the projection. This part is extremely interesting: -> Management stated that demand and capacity for 800G, 1.6T modules could surge nearly 10x by mid-2027. This is also a large tailwind for epiwafer companies too like $IQE and Landmark and more upstream like $AXTI. $AAOI is a core hold over 2026-2027, but there's always execution risks if they can deliver. $25-30B MC projections sound surreal but that's how wild the earnings was if they hit $4.35B ARR, off 900%+ growth (and photonics scale up is likely to continue even further into 2028-2029)

Here's a deeper look into $IQE ($179M): IQE's hidden InP optionality versus LandMark's $3.5B valuation. And the $IREN / $CRWV "miner" pivot to photonics: Before I did a high-level shower thought overview eg. $AXTI -> $IQE -> $LITE -> $GOOGL TPUs, but this is slightly more DD. Basically: IQE is the largest independent merchant compound semi epitaxial foundry in the world by reactor count and physical capacity. However, it's trading at distressed valuations because it's burdened by a low-margin legacy wireless business, and near-term liquidity constraints. LandMark Optoelectronics (TPEX: 3081) is the closest comparison. As a pure-play proxy for AI InP demand in the 800G and 1.6T optical interconnect market, LandMark commands a ~$3.8B billion market cap with large premiums in comparison to $IQE which is trading at a $175M MC. But if you look deeper at the physical hardware, the disconnect is pretty fascinating: LandMark's operational scale is physically limited. They only operate around 27 to 30 Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) reactors out of a single campus in Taiwan per some estimates. IQE, by stark contrast, possesses well over 100+ MOCVD and MBE systems globally. The underlying replacement value and structural capacity of IQE’s photonics asset base looks to vastly exceeds its current public market valuation. Kind of like if a Bitcoin miner has 3GW capacity, vs 750 MW, there's large optionality to monetize it if they convert it. And we're seeing an transceiver bottleneck too: -> The downstream demand for optical transceivers is experiencing unprecedented acceleration. -> Extreme demand, from $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN and others flow directly up the hardware supply chain. This puts immense pressure on transceiver integrators like Innolight, optical component manufacturers like $COHR, $LITE, and $AVGO, and ultimately, the merchant epitaxial foundries that grow the raw epiwafers required for the foundational laser chips. And since other players are hitting a physical capacity ceiling, vertically integrated players like $COHR are capped out, hyperscalers and module makers are desperate for alternative capacity in players like $IQE And.. Hidden entirely beneath IQE's consolidated corporate lines is a massive fleet of Aixtron AIX 2800G4-TM reactors. These are natively dual-capable (GaAs/InP) and can be repurposed for InP production at a relatively modest cost ($500K-$1.5M per reactor) but take few months or year to refactor. And obviously qualification and yield risk added to execution (similar to Bitcoin miners doing software orchestration to GPUs like $CRWV). But still, IQE has the capacity kinda like $IREN or Bitcoin miners that pivoted to HPC. And LandMark is proof of the valuation pure play exposure brings. The Major Question.. Unlocking Trapped Value: While IQE generates significantly higher top-line revenue than LandMark, it's priced ($175M MC) for bankruptcy because of its gross debt of 45M. But the debt looks like pennies to hyperscalers: The explicit, stated goal of their ongoing Lazard-advised strategic review is to definitively conclude the sale of IQE Taiwan (their legacy GaAs wireless business) and utilize the proceeds to completely and permanently extinguish the parent company's restrictive debt profile. Once again their convertible loan notes is a norminal face value of £21.2 million, for proceeds of £18 million for the company. Then they're net debt, £23.5 million. -> The immediate debt burden requiring clearance: £23.5M HSBC facility + £21.2M CLN = ~£45M. Assuming a highly sale price for the IQE Taiwan unit of between £100 million and £150 millio (not guaranteed), IQE would net £50 million to £100 million in surplus cash after becoming completely debt-free. However, RF GaAs is not currently "hot", so in a distressed asset sale it might only be £50M to £60M, which gives it enough room to clear debt alone and little cushion room. The Geopolitical Pivot: Once debt-free, IQE can shift its massive, currently underutilized manufacturing capacity in places like North Carolina and Wales toward the InP epiwafer market for datacenters. It creates a fully capitalized, purely Western-based supply chain for the most critical bottleneck in photonics, eliminating more dependency on Asia at a time when the US and UK are heavily prioritizing domestic semiconductor infrastructure. Basically, just given the amount of raw assets $IQE has: -> Successfully selling off their Taiwan business wipes out the going-concern risks, clears all debt, and leaves them to monetize their 6-inch inp epiwafer tech directly for the Tier 1 optical transceiver players. It's a deep asset value trade on a successful restructuring to unlock trapped value. And a currently well-known supplier for optical networking for hyperscalers (so not a science project). Downside risks are excessive dilution and failure to restructure. But given it's geopolitical importance to Western supply chains and hyperscaler supply chains, it seems to have more cushion. I personally decided to enter this long as a massive potential turnaround. But again, it's not for everyone and it's extremely high risk. TLDR: -> IQE is priced like a distressed RF supplier. -> It owns real photonics-capable infrastructure. -> If gross 41M debt is removed and management reallocates capex toward InP, the equity could rerate materially. -> Restructuring + capacity optionality trade with extreme risk but extreme upside. Closest comparison is Bitcoin miners like $IREN or $CIFR that pivot their GW capacity to AI HPC. They have a ton of physical hardware (GW capacity), and need funds to pivot (either through sale of Taiwan business or dilution). It's an optimistic trade I took they can do it (with wiggle room like $INTC given their geopolitical importance to the West). The downside is extreme dilution, which is always a possibility (meaning your equity gets wiped out to 0 to clear their debts or to help them refactor). I just found that 45M gross debt (14.4% of float + debt) wasn't the most and management was looking to clear that through asset sales rather than dilution to shareholders. Just wanted to publish deeper breakdown and more risks of this very binary **high risk**, but potentially high upside trade.

$AAOI is another photonics name that has just doubled in the last two months! Feels like every photonics company from $AXTI and $AAOI has been doubling or tripling recently? I’ve dubbed this the “Elite Four” for photonics exposure: 1. $LITE (High BOM of the TPU) 2. $AXTI (Materials for Eveything) 3. $COHR (huge part of supply chain) 4. $AAOI (made in America) Others like $IQE I’ve personally added recently slightly more for risk-on portfolios (epiwafer foundry for $LITE and others), but don’t have a great financial profile. That being said glad 2 months later, a lot of these names are taking off

So $AXTI is the next closest thing to NAND/HBM type price squeeze play (for photonics) that I've found. $LPTH is a germanium bottleneck fix w/black diamond that is more of an long term supply chain pivot to Made in America over time. Different risk levels and upside but pure upside I'd maintain AXT.

7N Indium prices have just hit ATHs on SMM with zero signs of slowing down. The $AXTI bottleneck is playing out real time. Western hyperscalers appear to be soaking up every bit of the InP substrates + precursors supply for the AI buildout. Like $SNDK and $MU, it's just a waiting game for the upstream suppliers like AXT to increase prices (like NAND). The supply shock feels inevitable.

$AXTI I’m actually extremely bullish on out of the group of stocks I’ve posted and im a net buyer at these levels. I’ll make a follow-up post but I just see 7n indium prices increase every day. And the photonics ramp are incredible if you look at 2027-2027. I did take cut on others like $OSS, after a 100% rally but still hold positions. $LPTH there was some concerning stuff regarding cheaper germanium alternatives so I did trim some positions. I’m in a weird situation where I need to be truthful/objective but don’t enjoy posting bear updates or when I sell since I don’t want to spread panic. So I just lean on the side of caution by refraining from it unless it’s extremely material (like an ATM) Last time I posted about selling $IREN I had a flood of negative comment spam for the next few weeks.

@DanilSer33 $AXTI same view, photonics ramping up, 7n InP prices are going higher. China export controls on Japan will tighten inventory. We’ll see how it plays out over the next year

Yeah that's a huge reason why I did $AXTI calls furthest date I could go out. I would have done 2027 strikes if they existed. If China restricts exports, it might get nuked, and you would lose like $1M in shares vs $100k in calls. So this is one of the very, very rare times Calls are actually safer then shares.

Thanks for following along! I'll just give you a breakdown: I like Fintech and AI, those are basically my two main growth investment baskets. Stablecoins like $CRCL are in the fintech domain. As for AI domain I am just supply chain investing: Neoclouds -> Top level consumer/hyperscaler cloud providers for AI. $NBIS is my favorite. Go down the supply chain, who helps manufacture the GPUs used that $NBIS and $IREN buy? -> GPUs from $NVDA, some $AMD, and maybe ASICs from $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN down the road. Who helps create those GPUs -> $TSM Who helps scale up those GPU clusters in data centers? -> $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI What are those raw materials used to produce the interconnects to scale up those GPU clusters? -> $AXTI They're all ride the AI CapEx wave thematically, but the exposure is all different. I never typically never say "1" because they all have different risk-profiles. if I had to choose the safest one for just compounding: $TSM If I had to choose the one with the highest possible upside over 6 months? $AXTI from material shock, but it could also go to 0 if China blocks exports. If I had to choose the best chance to 5-10x and become a hyperscaler over 2 years? $NBIS. But there's risks from dilution, ATMs stalling out the stock for a few months, but highest asymmetrical upside over periods of time from 7-9B arr 20% ebit in the future But of course, if AI CapEx wave slows, then they all go down, which it's good to diversify in other segments like fintech.

Not quite. I personally think it's a great company but there's nuances. Substrate prod is only a small fraction of Sumitomo's total revenue since it's already a massive company so you're not getting the same exposure. Also upstream there's InP materials that they buy while $AXTI partially owns 10+ raw material companies and does the refining and processing themselves. That being said, Sumitomo is de-risked compared to AXT since theres no export control nuke and there's probably more western money being funneled into supply chain diversification.

$COHR is amazing and probably the leading US company for InP substrate prod with their new 6in wafer fab. Two nuances: 1. Their production is nowhere close to the scale needed for hyperscalers that $AXTI and Sumitomo currently outputs 2. They are bottlenecked by upstream InP feedstock needed to grow crystals (owned by Vital, $DOWA, and $AXTI (captive)). CEO said in their ER that their capacity was maxed out and limited by InP lasers (and by 1 hop InP needed to produce them) My thought process is that instead of placing more order backlogs with $COHR, hyperscalers would go upstream. They would directly source 6n-7n from Vital, $DOWA, $AXTI and others that control InP, and give them to fabs like Sumitomo / $COHR or one level higher, buy out stock of InP substrates -> hand to $LITE as insurance. That being said a lot of money will likely be poured into Western supply chains but their capacity is nowhere enough since they're still bottlenecked upstream.

Just to make a correction to the Indium price above 6N grade Indium (Jan 2024, Jan 2025, Dec 2025) ~$680 / kg -> ~$840 / kg -> ~$1,110 – $1,350 / kg 7N grade Indium ~$1,150 / kg -> ~$1,800 / kg -> $3,450+ / kg 1.6T requires 7N. So prices have already started to ramp up, but I expect the huge chokepoint to come mid 2026. Not sure where the price goes, I just expect a bidding war to secure materials and $AXTI probably had the most direct exposure to this over Sumitomo and others.

When I made my WSB post, I'm half joking about $AXTI. But not about the extreme bottleneck and InP supply shock. This is a call on critical materials game theory. If we see many historically at bottlenecks: 1. Dysprosium: ~2,300% increase (~$100/kg -> $2400/kg 2010-11) 2. Neon Gas: ~1000%-2,000% increase (2022) 3. Rhodium: ~$3,000/oz -> ~$29,000/oz (~860%) The current Indium spike compared to others? 89% : (~$440 / kg -> ~$832 / kg). Critical materials used for semiconductors like Neon Gas (semi-grade lithography lasers), spiked over 2000% because chipmakers like Intel and Samsung had stockpiled during Ukraine conflicts. They absorbed the cost because neon is a small fraction of the chip's value. Like Neon, InP is a critical "enabler" material. The cost of the wafer is small relative to the cost of the AI cluster ($100 wafer vs $30,000 GPU). Hyperscalers would happily absorb huge price increases rather than delay deployment. We haven't seen that yet with InP, but we likely will. Traditional analysts and many AI Models do not understand how to model critical bottlenecks because there's not many examples in history where an extremely cheap commodity like InP with few hundred million TAM suddenly became the most critical material for the multi-trillion+ AI buildout. Currently, hyperscalers likely placed backlogs on downstream providers Coherent / $LITE, but likely didn't realize that laser production and capacity are backlogged because of materials shortage upstream. There is a supply storage both for InP substrates ( $AXTI + Sumitomo + JX production) as well as the Indium Phosphide feedstock ( $AXTI, Vital, $DOWA) where demand exceeds supply by multiple factors. $NVDA originally contributed to the supply shortage by locking in a large percent of capacity of EML. But shortage is already pre-hyperscaler ramp, where majority of the demand will come in late 2026 into 2027 when Trainium or Maia show up. But how do you get around original chokepoint and securing your AI deployment? Buying out substrate capacity directly from ( $AXTI, Sumitomo) or going one step lower and buying InP feedstock and passing them to substrate producers so Google's TPU program doesn't stall. And similar to how other critical materials were needed for lithography lasers. Indium Phopshide and InP substates are even more critical to the entire AI buildout: 1. Nvidia: InfiniBand / NVLink (optical - 800G/1.6T EML Transceivers) - Extreme dependency on InP 2. Google: Jupiter / Apollo (optical - OCS), Extreme dependency 3. Microsoft: Azure Maia: High (800G DR4/FR4) 4. Meta: F16 / Artemis (800G) High and this is not considering other Mag7 companies like $AMZN or other companies scaling out ASICs with photonics. Currently, analysts are modeling InP companies based on TAM. For example, the total InP Wafer Market from 2024 is $183M – $205M Straits Research, Mordor Intelligence (2024) - 6-inch (150mm) Segment TAM: $65m - Projected Total InP TAM (2032): $580M – $700M Now looking at TAM for Laser-Grade Indium Phosphide Feedstock: - Polycrystalline InP Feedstock TAM: ~$300 Million - High-Purity Indium (6N/7N) Only: ~$400 Million Substrate Data: Mordor Intelligence (InP Wafer Market 2025-2030) and Straits Research. Feedstock Data: Market Report Analytics (Indium Phosphide Polycrystalline Industry Analysis 2025). This was an extremely cheap telecom product and now it's one of the most precious materials in the entire supply chain. Increasing prices 3000% would only be low single digits of BOM value to $GOOGL TPU deployments or $MSFT MAIA deployments. And the project Microsoft ramp in 2027 alone would take up double digits of all InP capacity. Like Intel or semis back in 2022, hyperscalers will likely buy insurance directly with InP substrates + InP, similar to how semis stockpiled Neon Gas. If the "TAM" really was a few hundred million, but every single hyperscaler would face deployment delays if they don't secure this material. Then this becomes a game theory bidding war. In a $20B TPU deployment is stalled because of a $100 substrate, a hyperscaler would easily pay $10,000 (100 times current prices) for it without hesitation. That's why when you look at InP substrate companies and see $50m backlog (from 2024), that same $50m worth of capacity for future ones could be valued at $500m, $5B or more in an extreme scenario. This is a "tail-risk" investment, extremely reward if hyperscalers get bottlenecked by this material, but not without significant geopolitical risk and dilution. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do expect there to be an immense bottleneck in 2026 both in InP substrates and InP feedstock. So, if companies like $AXTI owns 40% of the entire InP supply chain (source: AXT CEO) and is valued at $700m, what value would you place on it?

$AXTI CEO - “We are 40% of the Indium Phosphide supply chain” Has there ever been a company this small ($700M) that controlled a critical bottleneck for a multi-trillion dollar industry? https://t.co/tn7EOMPgas

I can see that if you look at China domestic markets only but not western AI ramp. So two things: One is extreme ramp in general. Hyperscaler demand will always outstrip supply even with 6-inch InP wafers. So competitive alternative or not, demand doesn’t disappear but might get spread out through competitive alternatives in China’s domestic market. The other is vertical integration. You mentioned $DOWA on the western side and especially InP. $AXTI controls a huge percent of the world’s InP supply and if those prices gets jacked up from hyperscaler buying direct for insurance-> handing them to $COHR, then it’s more of an issue for Sumitomo. And AXT benefits from both layers of the bottlenecks. Xinyao/JFS entering the supply chain just makes adds one more player to the equation so it’s not doom and gloom. Eg memory (sk Hynix; MU, Samsung) Of course these points might get thrown out the drain if China export controls and we’re looking at China domestic market only. But generally demand outstrips supply (eg. COHR is at max) even if we add in more players.

Uhh, from my own personal research so far, to cover all grounds I’ve liked: 1. $AXTI at the very bottom of the entire supply chain + 1/3rd of InP substrates 1/4th of InP. Completely unheard of that AI supply chain is tethered to this $700m stock. 2. $DOWA + Sumitomo Electric for Western Hedge on substrate + materials. 3. $AAOI, $LITE for hyperscaler chips, one for $AMZN/ $MSFT, the other for everything but more levered to $TPU 4. $MRVL + $AVGO I think that’s kind of all you need to capture photonics BOM value + InP supply shock. There’s some other interesting ones like Landmark Opto that I’m looking at now. $POET didn’t quite make that list and you’d be getting exposure through $MRVL anyway, unless there’s something I missed

Sumitomo is subject to hikes in InP prices though if $GOOGL goes direct to $DOWA or others for feedstock. $AXTI owns the whole supply chain, and a huge portion of laser grade inp. But downside is obviously anuke from China exports. Sumitomo Electric is huge though so you’re not exactly getting the most direct exposure.

This is a research note on point failure of the entire AI buildout in $AXTI/China from both substrate production and laser-grade Indium Phosphide. I’m not doing valuation analysis on individual companies But if this flow stops, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO to $GOOGL, $MSFT faces extreme delays. I’ll write something else about valuing critical material bottlenecks if you want. But basically if a backlog was $50m from 2024 and TAM was $150m. And now because it’s a critical material, if Google would be willing to pay 50 times that (only a few percent increase on BOM cost to stay alive), then the valuation math of that original $50m backlog -> $2.5B for future capacity changes.

Don’t think hyperscalers understand the danger yet. $COHR is the leading “virtually integrated” American company. But the risk is it’s still stuck in the bottleneck for InP feedstock and buys 6N InP polycrystal (feedstock) from the merchant market. If the companies above stop selling 6N polycrystal, Coherent’s laser and transceiver business effectively hits a wall alongside the hyperscaler buildout. Coherent does not own major Indium mines or high-volume 6N synthesis plants on the scale of Vital Materials or $AXTI. To put it more simply: Coherent is the "Western Hope" for breaking the substrate duopoly between Sumitomo and $AXTI, but they are currently a hostage to the InP feedstok monopoly.

"Bottleneck within a Bottleneck": Indium Phosphide $AXTI | $SMTOY is a duopoly. They control 60%+ of the world's InP substrates as the bottleneck of the AI buildout. What's even more alarming? This is dependent on: Indium Phosphide. InP is a Monopoly. 78% control by $AXTI / China. Here's the bottleneck within a bottleneck: The InP substrates is already a duopoly between Japanese and Chinese entities. However, upstream production of laser-grade feedstock required by companies like Sumitomo is dominated by $AXTI (again) and Chinese companies. Here's the major issue: The AI industry is extremely reliant on photonics to scale. Whether, transceivers are "InP-based" or "Silicon-based" the photon source remains: Indium Phosphide. As AI clusters move from 10,000 to 100,000+ GPUs, the "copper bottleneck" is forcing a total shift to optical interconnects. This makes InP more critical to AI scaling than almost any other single material. On top of that, laser-grade feedstock must be at least 6N (99.9999%) pure. Even trace amounts of impurities (Silicon, Sulfur, Zinc), cannot be used like they do in other segments like LED. And most research probably confuses laser-grade feedstock with regular InP outputs. Sumitomo is arguably the most famous name in the InP substrate market. They hold a massive market share in the high-end laser substrate segment. Yet trade data suggest they are increasingly reliant on external feedstock for Indium Phosphide from companies like $DOWA and from China. (They're likely still included in feedstock ownership lists bc of captive recycling and reserves) So if the entire Western AI buildout feels safe regarding a Japanese company as a duopoly, think again. The source of the bottleneck is bottlenecked by Chinese suppliers like $AXTI and Chinese companies. If we look at production there's are estimates from deep research breakdown of estimate controls: Vital Materials - 35% (Merchant) - Vital acquired Fanya Metal Exchange inventory (3,600 tonnes of Indium) in 2020 gave them large control over the global Indium market. They have leveraged this to become the largest producer of InP polycrystal. Dominant cost leader; controls raw Indium supply (Fanya stocks). $AXTI - 25% (Beijing Tongmei Xtal Technology) - Primarily Captive. Most of their polycrystal production is consumed by their own crystal growth furnaces to make wafers. However, they also sell raw materials and compounds to the merchant market, making them a hybrid player. They're the only company in the world that goes from mines, refineries -> InP substrate output, which is an absolutely crazy bottleneck given they own both the raw materials into InP substrate controls. Feeds own wafer production; key non-Japan source. Zhuzhou Keneng New Material - 18% - Keneng has achieved "mass production of polycrystalline indium phosphide" and possesses "highly integrated automatic polycrystalline production capacity". They are a key recipient of China's export quotas for Indium. Pure-play synthesis specialist; major exporter. Then Outside: $DOWA - 12% - The biggest supplier out of any Western company (yeah Japanese). Deep roots in mining (Akita Zinc), so they're the leading supplier of high-purity metal organics and compounds. The "source" for Japan Inc. (Sumitomo, JX) Wafer Technology Ltd - 5% - A subsidiary of IQE plc. Critical strategic asset for NATO-aligned supply chains that require non-Chinese feedstock, even though they're going through asset liquidations right now. InPACT (France) - 3% - InPACT states they produce polycrystalline ingots via Horizontal Gradient Freeze (HGF) using high-pressure synthesis so they meet requirements from (Nokia, Ericsson) and some European defense sectors. Rest of World - 2% This includes major substrate makers (Coherent, Sumitomo), small-scale research production, and emerging players in Korea or Taiwan who are attempting to break the monopoly. The reality is that 78% of the global capacity for laser-grade InP feedstock is located in China. The demand for optical components already exceeds supply/production by multiple factors. This is pre-ramp too. The entire AI buildout is bottlenecked by two companies. But 1/4th of the materials comes from: $AXTI. And ~1/3rd of InP Substrate outputs again comes from laser-grade feedstock. The entire AI buildout is dependent on some random $700m company that serves as both the bottleneck of a bottleneck and the bottleneck. It's both national security issue to scale up InP production both for substrate and laser-grade feedstock.

@dr_lmfao_ Yeah absolutely, I’m working on a model to normalize ownership of indium phosphide for just laser grade feedstock from private vertically integrated players like $AXTI vs others like $DOWA or Vital Materials that sell on open markets. It’s extremely complex lol

So I’m not advocating for buying $AXTI since there’s significant risks with China supply chains but just clearing up misconceptions. If a stock “already-ran” it’s important to differentiate if the stock is cheaper than ever, even at ATHs. Just look at $MU forward p/e which is <10 last I checked even at ATHs. If inp substrate prices triple or even 10X (given it was priced like a cheap commodity for telecom) like memory because of an extreme bottleneck, did it already run or does it look cheaper than ever? If a $700m tiny company is now the single point of failure for the growth-cycle of AI we’ve hit the ceiling of InP substrates, how would you value it? Is a 500% increase enough?

Agreed, for traders, this should be an interesting opportunity like Lithium in 2021 when EVs came about or HBM currently with Sk Hynix and Micron if people recognized the bottlenecks early. Tons of opportunity ($AAOI only up 2.9% YTD despite new hyperscaler orders. Tied to hyperscaler deployments like Maia/Tranium). $MRVL with extreme demand but mainly in q4 2026, into 2027 from Maia, down 22% YTD. And $POET as an indirect beneficiary of $MRVL ramp too. Shortages throughout the entire supply chain with InP substrates. $GOOGL ramping up TPU which benefits $LITE and vertical integration + record backlog from $COHR Extremely absurd players like $AXTI with a $700m marketcap basically being the single point of failure for the future AI ramp. Not quite sure how you place a value on that lol. $COHR, $LITE and substrate providers are hitting the capacity limits now. We’ll see how much time it takes for his to go to the extremes like memory.

There is a lot risk with $AXTI for sure. That’s why it’s valued like a penny stock at $700m and not $30B+ like $SMTOY despite being both vertically integrated and one of the most important suppliers. And when you combine with the fact the AI supply chain is extremely reliant on this company for raw materials -> inp substrates they provide for photonics in order to ramp, that’s even a greater risk to the already fragile AI buildout.

@Qreiseck I will donate to a charity if your choice if you can point out where you realized a $700m microcap company like $AXTI was the bottleneck for the entire AI sector.

Grok is likely conflating wafer fab with InP substrate manufacturing. $AVGO's penn fab still requires InP substrates from Sumitomo, $AXTI, or JX to build the lasers (hence the bottleneck) and they're likely customers. And that small $700M MC company $AXTI is probably the only one of the bunch that does this end-to-end by owning Gallium, Indium, etc. on from the initial raw material refining. So the "does not primarily import InP wafers/substrates” part is probably wrong.

Yep, $LITE and $COHR are amazing and are up quite a bit since they tons pricing power. Go few levels deeper into $AXTI (vertically integrated), Sumitomo -> Dowa, etc. the concentration risk + bottleneck flashes warning signs. With HBM, it was an investment opportunity when people found that bottleneck. There's likely that same overlooked opportunity with photonic supply chains now when hyperscalers hoard materials and acquire capacity.

The "InP Chokepoint": The Bottleneck of the AI Buildout explanation: The future of $NVDA Blackwell, $META MTAI, $GOOGL TPU, and $MSFT Maia ramp is tied to: A $700M small cap $AXTI and $SMTOY. The AI "Growth" story ends in 2026 if there's no solution to InP. Here's why: The AI industry started its migrating to photonics for future ASIC/GPU deployments, because copper is hitting a physical limit. However, in doing so, hyperscalers traded the common material for InP (Indium Phosphide), when there's only a few factories capable of producing 6-inch InP wafers at the purity levels required for lasers. Let's take for example Google and their TPU v7 Ironwood program: Google uses Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), in simpler terms, switchboards made of light. For every one of those TPUs in the pod to talk, they require InP-based lasers. $LITE, which works with Google on this, largely depends on InP substrate (eg. AXT/Sumitomo) to make them. If they don't have it Google's entire Ironwood program doesn't just "slow down", it hits the wall. Modern ASICs/GPUs from $NVDA GB series, $AMZN Trainium, $MSFT Maia, $META MTAI have all made the same bet: Light is the way forward. Now, here's the issue. The entire Western AI roadmap is currently tethered to a $700M small-cap and a single Japanese company that produce majority of the world's InP substrates required for photonics. It's currently a duopoly (rough estimates majority supply ~60% between AXT + Sumitomo), with recent estimates of ~70%+ coming from Sumitomo Electric, AXT, Freiberger, JX, and Visual Photonics Epitaxy (filling in the gaps). Regardless, the entire future AI supply chain is thinner than a needle: - Moomoo Research: InP market is in a state of "global scramble" and "serious supply shortage" NVIDIA GB200 rollout (scale-out still requires tons of InP, not NVL72 within-the-rack comm). - Demand for high-speed transceivers today probably exceeds the supply by almost a factor of two (LightCounting) - Seeing record booking, but explicitly "supply-constrained by InP lasers" ( $COHR CEO Q3 ER) - McKinsey: 40% to 60% shortfall for 800G modules and a 30% to 40% shortfall for 1.6T modules. And these reports are likely understanding + very conserative given the demand ramp. Even going off Microsoft's projections on Maia ramp, ( est. 1M+ Maia by 2027 on UBS $MRVL note), with 2 million+ units of 1.6T transceivers over the next year, this volume is so large it represents a double-digit percentage of global substrate output. The projected "exponential growth" of AI is about to collide with the reality of critical material production. So, the "Ironwood", "MTIA" and "Maia" ramps aren't just ambitious, they may be impossible under current material constraints. Even if $COHR, JX Nippon, Sumitomo, $AXTI, and others, ramp up at maximum capacity (eg. $COHR / JX -> 6-inch InP wafers for 4x capacity), they still might not be able to meet the increasing demand from hyperscalers. Especailly with demand spikes occurring, eg. just for $NVDA alone (GB200/GB300 revisions). There are technical solutions like silicon photonics is one solution to bridge the gap, but this still largely requires an external InP laser as the light source. TFLN or quantum dot lasers are many many years away. There's probably no escaping the InP requirements for the next few years. So, the mismatch between chip design and material availability has created a strategic chokepoint, where if you go to the very bottom of the supply chain, very few companies control a majority of allocations, pricing, and supply. This is especially dangerous when compounded with geopolitical risks on US/China relations + export controls. That being said, here's what's probably what's going to happen: - Price Spikes: Prices from $AXTI, JX, Sumitomo will spike significantly -> $LITE, $COHR, Innolight (also increases prices from pass down) - Hyperscalers will directly stockpile materials, bypassing traditional component procurement and buying InP substrate inventory from $AXTI, JX Nippon, Sumitomo, and directly to consign to transceiver manufacturers like $LITE. (eg. Meta would bypass transceiver companies and go directly to AXT or Sumitomo) - Hyperscalers will buy out production allocation ( like $NVDA that has already aggressively "locked in" EML capacity (manufactured on InP substrates). Buying a substrate manufacturer or production allocation would become a necessity to so others like $NVDA or $GOOGL doesn't starve them out. As TPU v7 and and as other hyperscalers ramp up in 2026-2027, we will likely enter a "hunger games" phase for substrates where only each hyperscaler will be cannibalizing each other's growth for resource allocation. Companies like $NVDA (with record amounts of pre-allocation), might ramp be okay for the time being, but others programs would likely face major delays. Thoughts: 1. Some hyperscalers might be fine ( $NVDA). Others like $GOOGL and $MSFT will need to buy out materials + allocation before others do. 2. Industry needs to double down on engineering shifts like copper life extension and more material efficient ways like SiPh. 3. Move to 6-inch wafers for yields (eases things, but still not enough to meet demand) So the way things are now, the multi-trillion dollar AI scaling are tethered to some obscure $700m company $AXTI and $SMTOY. It seems inevitable that AI will hit the physical ceiling because of InP substrate capacity unless architectures change. In 2024, the bottleneck was GPUs. In 2025, it was HBM. In 2026, the primary constraint will likely be the optical interconnect, and specifically, the InP substrates that power them. This has now become the hidden bottleneck of the AI buildout.

Exactly. You just out why I'm sounding all the alarm bells to @sama, @sundarpichai, @satyanadella and Western AI leaders about huge InP substrate shortages/bottlenecks limiting future TPU/ASIC deployment involving photonics. Demand FAR exceeds supply for InP-based transceivers/lasers by multiple factors (source: LightCounting + McKinsey). We've only started the AI ramp with the TPU and the InP substrate industry is already bottlenecked -> held at chokepoint by two players: $AXTI, $SMTOY If trade wars affect $AXTI, there's just a complete void of available materials to scale AI clusters. There's just incredible importance on these two companies, stock price aside.

That’s what’s so incredibly alarming, that the Western AI buildout might be held at choke point by an obscure $700m company like $AXTI and $SMTOY. InP substrates were incredibly niche for telecom, but it’s suddenly a national security emergency as it became the material used for the world’s lasers and optional interconnects. I’m not quite sure the top level vendors realized this or at least didn’t realize the scale of this issue (eg. Signing agreements with $LITE without going deeper into the material suppliers for Lite), as the supply chain is incredibly becoming choke pointed by two companies. Google’s TPU v7 ramp for example placed an unprecedented strain/dependency on the InP supply chain that simply didn't exist a few months ago, since they use OCS for their chip pods, which is almost all in on photonics. As we’ve hit the upper limits with copper, the AI industry's reliance on AXTI is essentially a "single point of failure” on some small cap that supplies the materials for everything. I’m not looking at revenue numbers here, this dependency is just absurd, the 1.6T networking just breaks. I’m not sure where companies go from here, I’m sure they’ll try and hoard materials or secure multi-year agreements but either way two companies hold all the cards.

It's multifaceted. However, InP is EXTREME because $AXTI and $SMTOY control roughly 60%+ of this critical global supply. The industry's shift from copper to photonics has created this structural single point of failure on the entire buildout. Every optical transceiver/interconnects in hyperscaler data centers from Google TPUs, NVIDIA's CPO roadmap, AWS/Meta networks requires InP-based components. This is the definition of a bottleneck. The future of the entire trillion dollar AI buildout depends on the stability of some random $700m penny stock and a Japanese industrial giant.

That’s for you to figure out. I’m just highlighting how two companies (one of which is worth $600m) happens to be the bottleneck of the entire AI trade in the near future. Historically InP substrates were a cheap commodity. And now… they’re not. If every single hyperscaler spending hundreds of billions of GPUs/ASICs can’t function without $20m of InP, companies like $AXTI can theoretically raise prices 5x and it would be a rounding error. There is a massive geopolitical risk with China for you to consider too but $600m MC is typically hilarious pocket change if the entire buildout is bottlenecked by one or two companies.

Thanks, we might not see a InP substrate bottleneck yet, but we’ll likely see it when hyperscaler ASICs (TPU, Trainium, Maia, etc.) ramp up -> supply strains like memory mid-2026. That doesn’t quite mean material providers should be valued like $LITE, but the fact that the entire future AI buildout has a single point of failure that comes from a small $600m company like $AXTI is amusing.

Disclosure: I have positions in $LITE, $AAOI, and $AXTI in the photonics sector. From my own personal thought process, if I see the entire AI industry and players like $LITE and Innolight bottlenecked by some $600m company worth less than a new pre-revenue LLM startup, I’m long. There is downside risk including changing ownership dilution structures if China wants to restrict $AXTI in US markets.

HBM was a critical bottleneck in 2025 and we've seen that with $MU and SK Hynix. Just researching components used for future hyperscaler ASIC deployments, the whole industry is moving to photonics. If we go to the bottom of that supply chain it's just two companies for INP substrates. Which is absurd to think about. It could be a huge market opportunity for investors for stuff like $AXTI, but just in terms of national security risk, it's just a crazy bottleneck that needs to be looked at. There's companies like $COHR, but nowhere near to scale required for AI buildout.

Warning: The entire AI industry will likely be bottlenecked by two companies: 1. $AXTI ($700M) 2. $SMTOY ($31.7B) Which both control 60–70%+ of the world's InP substrates. Future $NVDA, $GOOGL TPU v7 pods, $META, $MSFT, $AMZN hyperscaler clusters require InP-based lasers and receivers. $AVGO, $LITE, $COHR use for EMLs for 800G/1.6T transceivers, DFB lasers, and other optical infra. Without InP substrates, the supply chain falters. After looking at TPU BOM to Maia BOM, it looks like future ASICs + GPUs + hyperscaler deployments are heavily reliant on photonics. And two vendors could freeze the global InP substrate market covering nearly all of: - Hyperscaler optics (TPU pods, etc) - Optical transceivers (5g, data) - LiDAR (robotaxis, drones, military) -Optical Modules (interconnect clusters) - Silicon photonics laser dies (Nvidia’s future co-packaged optics and Intel/Broadcom SiPh engines use InP CW laser arrays.) Since these companies make up majority of the market supply: -AXTI (est. ~30–35%) -Sumitomo (est.~30%) - JX Nippon (est. 10-15%) That’s it. (eg. 2021 industry note from Yole states that "Sumitomo Electric + AXT together had “more than 75%” of the InP substrate market") Hyperscalers/AI are moving toward photonics but the entire AI industry is fragile. If either $AXTI or $SMTOY stop supplying materials, the entire future AI buidlout gets crippled. It's even crazier that a $700m company could become the the center of it all. InP substrate will likely one of the biggest bottlenecks alongside HMB as the AI industry shifts to photonics.

@manukafirth Another good one is $AXTI which is the materials supplier for $LITE / photonics. $500m mc