Nvidia's CEO just lit a fire under optical stocks — buy the AI data-center suppliers
Nvidia's CEO just publicly praised optical component makers, sending their stocks soaring. Meanwhile, tech giants like Alphabet and SoftBank are committing over $150 billion combined to build AI data centers — all of which need optical networking parts to function.
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At a major tech conference in Taipei, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang specifically highlighted optical component companies as critical to the AI buildout. That endorsement sent stocks like Lumentum and Coherent rocketing. The timing matters because we're seeing unprecedented capital commitments to AI data centers — Alphabet is raising $80 billion and SoftBank is spending €75 billion on a single data hub in France. Every one of those data centers needs optical components to connect servers at the speeds AI requires. These suppliers are the pick-and-shovel plays of the AI gold rush, and they're just starting to get bid up after Nvidia's CEO put a spotlight on them.