Toronto, May 5, 2026, 12:12 EDT
Shares of POET Technologies Inc. surged roughly 30% by late morning on the Nasdaq Tuesday, as the Canadian photonics firm drew attention again. Fresh shareholder alerts continued to push a securities lawsuit tied to its Marvell order disclosures, but that didn’t stop the rally. At 11:56 a.m. EDT, the stock was changing hands at $9.25, well above its $7.19 open and on volume topping 60 million shares.
This isn’t your typical rebound. On Tuesday, Bernstein Liebhard said a shareholder has launched a securities class action targeting investors who picked up POET shares from April 1 through 8:57 a.m. ET on April 27. That’s the stretch right up until POET revealed it was scrapping purchase orders from Celestial AI, which is now part of Marvell.
POET’s main selling point to investors hangs on its optical engines and light-source products—gear it says can power AI systems and hyperscale data centers. These optical engines, compact assemblies that transmit data using light, are meant to solve the bandwidth and power crunch pressing on AI data centers right now. According to POET’s latest annual filing, a big chunk of the industry is shifting from 400G to 800G optical links, or even faster.
The U.S. District Court docket for the District of New Jersey lists POET Technologies Inc., CEO Suresh Venkatesan, and CFO Thomas Mika as defendants in Jones v. POET Technologies Inc.. Filed April 28, the lawsuit seeks damages under federal securities laws—these are still just allegations at this stage, not established facts.
POET, in an SEC filing dated April 27, disclosed that Marvell Semiconductor had sent written notice on April 23, scrapping every purchase order tied to Celestial AI, which Marvell acquired. According to POET, Marvell pointed to public disclosures of purchase order and shipping data, saying those violated confidentiality terms.
The complaint flags Mika’s April 21 Stocktwits interview, quoting him calling POET “a supplier to Marvell” after Marvell picked up Celestial AI, and stating some product would ship this year. According to the filing, those remarks breached a business agreement and left POET vulnerable to the order cancellation.
Tax status throws up another complication. On April 14, POET said it expected to fall under the U.S. passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, regime in 2025—a classification that often means extra tax headaches for American investors in foreign firms. But Mika’s message was different for 2026: “we believe that we will not qualify as a PFIC” next year. The board, he said, plans to shift headquarters and redomicile POET in the United States. GlobeNewswire
Legal filings are piling up after Wolfpack Research, a short seller, raised public doubts about POET’s PFIC status and the company’s story. Dan David, who leads Wolfpack, told Business Insider his worries about POET’s tax position predated the Marvell order headlines. According to Business Insider, neither POET nor Marvell replied to requests for comment.
Celestial AI’s position in the high-speed AI data transfer race made the Marvell deal significant. Back in December, Reuters said Marvell bought Celestial AI for $3.25 billion to bring in photonic-fabric tech—hardware that links AI chips and memory using light, not electricity—and step up its rivalry with Broadcom and Nvidia in AI infrastructure.
POET trails its bigger rivals and partners by a wide margin. The 2025 annual filing lists revenue at just $1.07 million, with a pre-tax net loss of about $62.96 million. The company also flagged in that filing that competitors often have longer track records, larger customer bases, and more funding to draw on.
Tuesday’s rally doesn’t clear up the major risks. In its own filing, POET points out that customers can back out or push off purchase orders, with commitments usually not extending past the firm ones. The plan to redomicile in the U.S. still faces hurdles—tax, shareholder approval, execution—all on the table.
Right now, POET stock is caught between two key unknowns: Can the company backfill the revenue gap left by Celestial AI, and will class-action allegations tied to tax status and Marvell disclosures pick up momentum as the June 29 lead-plaintiff cutoff approaches?
