Key insights
- The article suggests that a selloff in photonics is unwarranted, citing ongoing advancements and adoption by hyperscalers like Google. Despite some reports suggesting delays in 800V DC and photonics, evidence points to continued progress and critical demand for high-speed optics in data centers for AI and multi-node training. This indicates potential upside for companies involved in photonics and related infrastructure, as their technology is essential for scaling cloud and AI capabilities.
Semianalysis wrote how 800V DC and photonics are getting pushed back few years but it doesn't look like it's true.
Switches (spectrum) are already being delivered (https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2026/06/04/2003858481) and performance improvements are insane https://macroplane.com/blog/co-packaged-optics.
every hyperscaler and neocloud needs optics to interconnect for multi-node training or serving large models. If you don't have fast interconnection it means you have to keep moving your customers around to win the "tetris".
Afaik google uses all optics across their datacenters so they can assemble virtual clusters that are interconnected without interrupting/moving workloads around.
What are your thoughts?