Optical module giant Zhongji Innolight announced on the evening of August 31 that it plans to repurchase A-shares through centralized bidding using its own or self-raised funds, with a total buyback amount of no less than 4 billion yuan and no more than 8 billion yuan, and a maximum repurchase price of 1,200 yuan per share. The repurchased shares will be used for employee stock ownership plans or equity incentives. If they are not fully used within 36 months after the buyback is completed, the remaining portion will be cancelled in accordance with the law. This buyback scale is considered a major move in the A-share market, with the 8 billion yuan upper limit second only to a few leading companies such as CATL, Gree Electric Appliances, and Midea Group. The announcement shows that as of June 30, 2026, the company's total assets were 68.942 billion yuan, net assets were 39.859 billion yuan, and current assets were 46.708 billion yuan. If the full 8 billion yuan buyback upper limit is used, the buyback amount would account for 11.60 percent of total assets, 20.07 percent of net assets, and 17.13 percent of current assets. Management believes this will not have an adverse impact on continuing operations, profitability, or debt repayment ability. In the first half of 2026, Zhongji Innolight achieved operating revenue of 41.778 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 182.49 percent, and net profit of 13.651 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 241.70 percent. Its first-half profit already exceeded the full-year 2025 figure of 10.797 billion yuan, with second-quarter net profit of 7.917 billion yuan, up 38 percent quarter-on-quarter. The company stated that demand for 800G optical modules remained strong in 2026, 1.6T products accelerated their volume ramp-up, and orders from nearly all customers already cover the full year, with some customer orders extending into 2027. It also emphasized that the current pricing system is healthy and there is no vicious competition. Industry research institutions predict that the global Ethernet optical module market is expected to continue rapid growth in 2026, but the supply bottleneck for high-speed optical chips may persist until mid-2027, and manufacturers with in-house chip development capabilities or stable supply channels will be in a more favorable position. Currently, Zhongji Innolight's total market value remains at the trillion-yuan level, and the market consensus estimate for its full-year net profit has approached 30 billion yuan. Second-quarter revenue grew about 14 percent quarter-on-quarter, slower than the first quarter. How the company maintains its profit release pace in the second half of the year will be key to validating the reasonableness of its valuation.
Arista Unveils Open Ethernet Rack-Scale Portfolio for Scale-Up and Scale-Out AI Fabrics
Arista Networks announced its open Ethernet rack-scale portfolio for high-density scale-up and scale-out AI infrastructure, engineered in partnership with AMD, Arm, Broadcom, d-Matrix, Meta, Microsoft, and Qualcomm. The offering introduces Etherlink SU-144, an Ethernet-based scale-up architecture that expands unified computing domains up to 144 accelerators in a single-hop network and scales to 1,024 XPUs through cross-rack topologies, across three physical form factors: an orthogonal chassis, a cabled backplane, and a cross-rack system. The scale-out fabric, built on a common Netdi foundation, supports scale-up protocols including ESUN, Nvidia's NVLink, NVLink Fusion, and PCIe, and incorporates Ultra Ethernet Consortium standards, Multipath Reliable Connection fabric resiliency, multi-plane routing, and Dynamic and Cluster Load Balancing. Rack designs feature multiple liquid-cooled 7060EX7 switches with 102.4 Tbps capacity per switch, fiber patch panels, integrated liquid-cooling manifolds, drip trays with active leak detection, rack management controllers, and power shelves with Backup Battery Units. Full integration of switches, optics, liquid cooling, and rack control with next-generation optics such as XPO and open CPO/NPO raises rack capacity from 1.6 Pb/s with today's OSFP-based switches to 6.5 Pb/s, translating to nearly a 50% reduction in overall data center footprint.
ANET · Technology · Positive Arista unveils its open Ethernet rack-scale portfolio for scale-up/scale-out AI fabrics, its own new product launch
MSFT · Technology · Positive Microsoft is named as a partner in Arista's open Ethernet rack-scale AI fabric portfolio, aligning with its AI infrastructure buildout.
NVDA · Competition · Neutral Nvidia's NVLink and NVLink Fusion are supported by Arista's scale-out fabric, but the open Ethernet push also competes with Nvidia's proprietary networking.
QCOM · Technology · Positive Qualcomm is named as a partner in Arista's open Ethernet rack-scale AI infrastructure portfolio.
d-Matrix · Technology · Positive d-Matrix is named as a partner in Arista's open Ethernet rack-scale AI fabric portfolio.
Ciena Shares Jump 14% on Marvell's 60-70% Optical Growth Outlook
Ciena Corp. rebounded as much as 14.3 percent in intraday trading on Tuesday to $445.36 apiece, helped by peer Marvell Technology's growth outlook for the optical interconnects sector. At its recent Investor Day, Marvell said it expects the industry to grow by 60 to 70 percent to about $65 billion through 2030, with switching and storage alone reaching $85 billion, or a compounded annual growth rate of 40 percent. Those figures were markedly higher than Ciena's own 30 percent growth outlook for its business by 2029. Bernstein initiated coverage with an outperform rating and a $440 price target, acknowledging near-term supply constraints but calling the stock undervalued, while Evercore maintained an outperform rating and a $550 price target, citing optimism that Ciena can achieve more than $25 in earnings per share. Hedge fund holders in Ciena rose to 81 in the second quarter from 73 in the first, with combined holdings up 2 percent to $3.997 billion from $3.913 billion quarter-on-quarter.
CIEN · Capital · Positive Ciena shares jumped 14% after Bernstein initiated with an outperform rating and $440 target and Evercore maintained outperform with a $550 target, calling the stock undervalued.
MRVL · Demand · Positive Marvell's Investor Day projected the optical interconnects industry to grow 60-70% to about $65 billion through 2030, signaling strong end-market demand.
Fabric.AI Taps Kearney to Lead Commercialization of Neural I/o Optical Interconnect Platform
Fabric.AI has engaged global management consulting firm Kearney to lead and accelerate the commercialization strategy for its Neural I/o MicroLED-based optical interconnect platform. The company, together with its development partner Kopin Corporation, has executed non-disclosure agreements with several leading semiconductor and data center technology companies, with technical discussions already underway. Kearney's mandate is to convert that early engagement into a structured commercial pipeline by sharpening product positioning, identifying and prioritizing target customers and channel partners, and preparing Fabric.AI for active sales discussions expected to begin after planned hardware demonstrations in early 2027. James Altucher, an independent strategic advisor to Fabric.AI, said Neural I/o addresses the two constraints defining the next generation of AI data centers, how much data can be moved and what it costs in power to move it, and that Kearney's role is to help turn confidential discussions into commercial relationships. Fabric.AI trades on Nasdaq under the ticker FABC, while Kopin Corporation trades under KOPN.
FABC · Demand · Positive Fabric.AI engaged Kearney to commercialize Neural I/o and has NDAs plus technical discussions underway with leading semiconductor and data center firms.
KOPN · Demand · Positive Kopin is Fabric.AI's development partner on the Neural I/o platform, which has NDAs and technical talks underway with leading semiconductor and data center companies.
Narui Radar plans to acquire 51% stake in Xintai Communications for 162 million yuan, resuming M&A push into optical communications
Narui Radar announced on the evening of September 30 that it plans to use 162 million yuan of its own funds to acquire a 51% stake in Guangzhou Xintai Communication Technology Co., Ltd. After the transaction, Xintai Communications will become its controlling subsidiary. Founded in 2013, Xintai Communications focuses on integrated optical transmission systems and optical transmission optimization solutions. In 2025, it achieved revenue of 109 million yuan and net profit of 19.72 million yuan; in the first half of 2026, revenue was 66.43 million yuan and net profit was 13.14 million yuan. Using June 30, 2026 as the base date, the income approach valued the full equity of its shareholders at 317 million yuan, a premium of 385.58%, and this transaction adopts the income approach conclusion. The counterparty commits that Xintai Communications' non-GAAP net profit from 2026 to 2028 will be no less than 25 million yuan, 29 million yuan, and 38 million yuan respectively, representing a first-year commitment growth of about 30% compared with the 19.31 million yuan non-GAAP net profit in 2025. Earlier in March this year, Narui Radar terminated its plan, which had been in preparation for more than 14 months, to acquire a 100% stake in Tianjin Sigma Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. and withdrew all application documents.
Artificial Intelligence › Optical Interconnect & DCI Capital
688522.CG · Capital · Positive Naruida plans to acquire a 51% controlling stake in Xintai Communications for 162 million yuan, resuming its M&A push into optical communications.
Meta Unveils Petal Subsea Cable Linking US and France
Meta announced Petal on Sept. 21, a roughly 4,300-mile subsea cable connecting the U.S. and France that is expected to enter service in 2029 and will be the first to deliver petabit-scale capacity across an ocean. The cable will carry 1 petabit per second, or about 125,000 gigabytes per second, double what today's most advanced transoceanic cables can handle, using two-core fiber that fits two light paths inside each strand. Petal is one piece of a much larger seafloor empire: Meta says it has invested in more than 20 subsea cable projects touching every continent except Antarctica, led by Project Waterworth, announced in February 2025, which will stretch more than 31,000 miles and connect the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, India, and other regions across five continents. Petal is being developed with Japan's NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries, with French telecom Orange handling the landing on France's Atlantic coast, while Waterworth will be wholly owned by Meta, only its third solely owned cable according to telecom research firm TeleGeography. Meta has not disclosed what Petal or Waterworth will cost, but TechCrunch reported before Waterworth's announcement that the project could top $10 billion, a small slice of the company's expected capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion this year, nearly double the $72.2 billion it spent in 2025.
Coherent Jumps 10.5% After Bernstein Initiates With Outperform and $350 Target
Coherent shares jumped 10.5% in the afternoon session after Bernstein rated the materials and photonics company Outperform with a $350 price target, citing optical-module upside as data-center switches move to higher speeds. According to Streetinsider, Bernstein framed $350 as roughly 24% upside, valuing the stock at 22 times estimated 2028 earnings per share of $16, and argued optical-module demand should keep expanding with faster networking gear. Citi commentary tagging Coherent as an AI hardware beneficiary reinforced the bullish AI-infrastructure read-across, alongside investor focus on Coherent's PhotonLink optics platform and an AI security demo amid a broader bid in networking names. The move follows a 5.2% gain two days earlier on news that Coherent demonstrated scalable physical-layer security for artificial intelligence infrastructure developed alongside CUbIQ Technologies. Coherent is up 63.1% since the start of the year, but at $317.01 per share it still trades 25.7% below its 52-week high of $426.89 from June 2026.