Nvidia Commits $6.5 Billion to Photonics as AI Optical Market Eyes Ninefold Growth

Amphenol's IT datacom business, which represented 43% of the company's total sales in the second quarter of 2026, saw revenues surge 89% year over year and 63% organically, with management saying the AI revenue run rate has reached roughly $10.5-$11 billion. Management noted that virtually all of the 22% sequential IT datacom growth in the quarter came from AI-related products, as customers require more copper, optics and power for larger, more complex AI clusters. The company's acquisition of CommScope contributed more than $1.2 billion in sales in the quarter, with CommScope's IT datacom business nearly doubling year over year; management expects that market to account for just under half of CommScope's 2026 sales, compared with roughly one-third in 2025. Amphenol faces tough competition from TE Connectivity, whose Digital Data Networks sales rose 34% year over year in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 with bookings up more than 70% year to date, and from Marvell Technology, whose data-center revenues increased 46% year over year to $2.17 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2027. Amphenol shares have risen 16% year to date, trailing the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector's 17% gain, and trade at a forward 12-month price/earnings of 25.32X versus the sector's 20.38X, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings stands at 72 cents per share, up 5 cents over the past 30 days and implying 53.19% growth.

Jim Cramer told Mad Money viewers to wait for Corning Incorporated to fall further before trimming or holding, citing the company's at-the-market selling program. Corning disclosed on September 11 that it had entered an agreement with Goldman Sachs to sell up to $2 billion of common stock through an at-the-market offering, with proceeds intended for general corporate purposes. The prospectus assumes raising the full $2 billion at $165.96 per share would require issuing 12,051,097 shares, increasing shares outstanding from 861,388,331 to 873,439,428. The offering came as Corning's optical business remained strong: at a September 9 Citi conference, CFO Ed Schlesinger said optical demand was very strong and orders continue to pick up, and second-quarter Optical Communications sales rose 32% year over year to $2.07 billion while core sales increased 17% to $4.74 billion. The bear case centers on execution, as Corning targets a $10 billion scale-up photonics business by the end of the decade tied largely to adoption of NPO and CPO technologies, and expects full-year 2026 capital expenditures of approximately $2 billion compared with $754 million spent in the first half of the year.

GlobalFoundries has signed a new multi-year agreement with Marvell Technology to increase production capacity for its silicon germanium technology. Under the deal, GlobalFoundries will expand SiGe production at its Burlington, Vermont facility to support Marvell's growing requirements, with the added capacity aimed at next-generation pluggable optical transceivers, Near-Packaged Optics and Co-packaged Optics. The collaboration is expected to serve rising demand for high-speed optical connectivity driven by artificial intelligence and cloud data center infrastructure. GlobalFoundries' existing solutions support 200G-per-lane optical connectivity, while its development roadmap targets higher-speed generations as bandwidth requirements rise. The company faces competition from United Microelectronics, which has begun mass production of photonic IC wafers, and Taiwan Semiconductor, which is strengthening its CoWoS packaging and silicon photonics capabilities.