New York, March 2, 2026, 12:35 (EST) — Regular session
Shares of Coherent Corp (COHR.N) jumped roughly 14% midday Monday after Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in the photonics firm. The move pushed Lumentum (LITE.O) up close to 8% and helped Nvidia (NVDA.O) climb about 3%. Year to date, Coherent is up nearly 60%, while Lumentum has approximately doubled as investors pile into data-center optics linked to AI expansion.
Nvidia is making a bigger play in the guts of AI systems, beyond its signature chips. The company is committing $2 billion to Coherent and Lumentum, sealing multi-year supply deals that lock in rights to future capacity on advanced lasers and optical networking components.
Photonics relies on light instead of electrical signals for data transfer—a change chip companies think could deliver faster speeds without ramping up power consumption. “Computing has fundamentally changed,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Coherent CEO Jim Anderson said, “We are proud to expand our 20-year relationship with NVIDIA.” Securities and Exchange Commission
Nvidia snapped up 7,788,161 Coherent shares at $256.80 apiece through a $2 billion private placement, according to a filing. The document also outlined that Nvidia’s partnership now extends to five more Coherent product families linked to co-packaged optics.
Nvidia outlined a $2 billion commitment in its separate agreement with Lumentum, aiming to bolster R&D and U.S. manufacturing while locking in advanced laser component supply. “We are also investing in a new fabrication facility to increase capacity,” Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston said. NVIDIA Newsroom
The basic argument: light-based connections move more data while using less energy than copper—an advantage as AI clusters pack in more hardware. AMD jumped in too, snapping up photonics firm Enosemi last year. Silicon photonics is starting to pull in bigger parts of the chip and networking world.
Optics suppliers surged even as U.S. stocks struggled amid turbulence. The main Wall Street indexes slipped, dragged down by renewed fears that the Middle East conflict might rattle trade routes and trigger another bout of inflation. Crude oil, meanwhile, jumped over 8%.
Even so, these deals aren’t exclusive, and buyers are fronting cash now for production lines that don’t exist yet and still need to pass muster. Shares of Lumentum have more or less doubled since January—so any holdup or softer demand could hit hard.
Eyes have shifted to Nvidia’s spending intentions—and to how rapidly Coherent and Lumentum might ramp up production for data-center optics. The sector’s next litmus test comes with the Optical Fiber Communication conference in Los Angeles, scheduled for March 15-17.
