Nvidia · CNBC Technology
Since the beginning of March, Nvidia has announced $2 billion investments into Lumentum, Coherent and Marvell
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"Photonics represents a way for Nvidia to scale their AI infrastructure without the energy costs that staying with electrical and copper will incur," Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester, told CNBC.
Key facts
- Lumentum's stock has risen 134% since the start of the year, while Coherent is up 96%
- Since the beginning of March, Nvidia has announced $2 billion investments into Lumentum, Coherent and Marvell, all of which are developing photonics tech
- Chipmaker AMD joined Nvidia in the Ayer Labs round, as well as acquiring startup Enosemi in 2025, alongside making equity investments in Teramount and Celestial AI
- The technology is sound, production scale is the harder problem," Nick Patience, AI lead at the Futurum Group, told CNBC
Summary
Nvidia has committed at least $6.5 billion into companies developing photonics technology in the past three months, as the company races to invest in solving one of the major bottlenecks to the rollout of AI. Photonics, the use of light to transmit data, is an emerging technology considered to be a more efficient alternative to the current process of transferring data using electricity. Since the beginning of March, Nvidia has announced $2 billion investments into Lumentum, Coherent and Marvell, all of which are developing photonics tech. "By investing in photonics companies, Nvidia is making sure that advancements in photonics continue and it will prevent them from hitting a scalability and performance wall that will occur if they remain on electrical and copper.