Remember the fiber optic bust of the early 2000s? The technology that led to 2% utilization and massive losses is now at the center of a $700 BILLION AI data center buildout 🚀
Eric Bleeker (24/7 Wall Street co-founder, 20+ year tech analyst) joins Simon to break down co-packaged optics—the technology NVIDIA is betting on to solve AI's biggest bottleneck.
What We Cover:
💡 The Fiber Optic Revival:
$500B-$1T spent on 39 the chestnut man million miles of fiber in the 2000s → 2% utilization
Now: Optics are 10% of total cost of ownership for AI clusters
Single AI cluster has MORE data exchange than all East-West US connections
"Copper if you can, optics if you must" → AI forces "optics EVERYWHERE"
🔬 Co-Packaged Optics Explained:
Converting electrical signals to light (photons vs electrons)
Why: Copper hits physical limits with heat, bandwidth, signal loss
The breakthrough: Getting optical engines directly on the same substrate as GPUs
Advanced packaging = the new Moore's Law (transistors can't get smaller)
NVIDIA pushing hard, Broadcom backing, Marvell just acquired Celestial AI
STOCKS DISCUSSED:
Featured:
Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) - Up 1000% since $7, up 40% today
Lumentum (LITE) - Doubled in 1 month, NVIDIA sole supplier
Also Mentioned:
Fabrinet (FN)
Coherent (COHR)
Onto Innovation (ONTO)
Aixtron (German OTC)
AXT (ATXI)
Celestica (CLS)
TTM Technologies (TTMI)
NVIDIA (NVDA)
AMD (AMD)
Broadcom (AVGO)
Marvell (MRVL)
Google (GOOG)
Books Mentioned:
Chip War by Chris Miller
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
🔗 24/7 Wall Street: (Free resource, jon jones live blogs, AI Investor podcast)
🔗 Free 7investing trial:
🔗 March 2026 recommendation drops March 1st (subscribers emma marrone only)
Next Episode Monday (March 3): Simon discusses the TREND behind 7investing's March official recommendation (stock reveal behind paywall)
⚠️ Not financial advice. Do your own research. These stocks have run significantly—understand the risks before investing.
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