CK Capital

CK Capital

@CKCapitalxx

Apr 6, 2026, 14:46 UTC

The photonics sector has been the greatest trade most investors have never heard of. Here are the one year returns of some of my favorite socks from the sector and their role in photonics. $LITE — +1,570% $AAOI — +975% $AXTI — +3,600% $AEHR — +650% $COHR — +410% These are the picks and shovels of AI. $LITE — Lumentum. Makes the high powered lasers and optical components inside AI data center transceivers. $NVDA invested $2 billion directly into the company. Revenue growing 85% year over year. Optical circuit switches sold out through end of 2027. Rosenblatt price target $900. $AAOI — Applied Optoelectronics. Makes 800G and 1.6T optical transceivers for hyperscale data centers. Builds its own lasers in-house in Texas which $LITE and $COHR cannot do. Revenue growing 130% year over year. $124 million in new hyperscale orders in the last few weeks alone. CEO 99% confident in $1 billion revenue in 2026. $AXTI — AXT Inc. Makes the indium phosphide substrates that the lasers inside every optical transceiver are built on. You cannot make the laser without the wafer. You cannot make the wafer without $AXTI. 40% global InP market share. Demand expected to double in 2026. The most upstream and most essential chokepoint in the entire photonics supply chain. $AEHR — Aehr Test Systems. Tests photonic chips and silicon carbide wafers before they ship. Every transceiver needs to be validated before it goes into a data center. You cannot skip this step. As volume scales $AEHR’s revenue scales directly with it. $COHR — Coherent. The industrial scale laser foundry powering the entire sector. 25% global market share in optical transceivers. $NVDA invested $2 billion. S&P 500. CPO switches sold out through 2027. Every GPU cluster on earth needs to move data between chips at speeds copper cannot handle. These five companies are the only way to do it. The AI buildout does not happen without them. The world is moving from 800G to 1.6T to 3.2T. Each step is a new upgrade cycle. Each upgrade cycle is another catalyst.