New York, March 2, 2026, 4:15 p.m. EST — After-hours
- Nvidia shares climbed roughly 3% in the latest trading, following the chipmaker’s announcement of $2 billion investments in Lumentum and Coherent.
- The agreements focus on photonics and advanced optics components—essential for connecting AI chips within data centers.
- Eyes now turn to Nvidia’s GTC event coming up later this month, where investors are watching for any product news or roadmap details.
Nvidia shares climbed roughly 3% in after-hours action Monday, recently trading $5.31 higher at $182.37. The move followed news that the chipmaker plans to invest $2 billion apiece in optics suppliers Lumentum and Coherent, aiming to strengthen its lineup of AI data-center processors.
It’s all about speed, but don’t forget the plumbing. With AI data centers ramping up, the real bottleneck tends to slide away from the chips and settles on the connections: cables, switching gear, and modules that shuttle data into and out of servers.
Photonics—moving data with light rather than electricity—lets information travel farther, faster, and with less heat than copper wiring. That becomes crucial when you’re talking about AI clusters stuffed with thousands of chips.
Nvidia’s deal with Lumentum isn’t exclusive, but it does involve a multibillion-dollar commitment to buy advanced laser components, plus future access to extra capacity, according to the company. “AI has reinvented computing and is driving the largest computing infrastructure buildout in history,” said CEO Jensen Huang. Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston added that his company is “investing in a new fabrication facility to increase capacity.” NVIDIA Newsroom
Nvidia’s deal with Coherent comes with a $2 billion investment, locking in supply and capacity for high-end laser and optical networking gear. “In the age of AI, software runs on intelligence with tokens generated in real time,” Nvidia’s Huang said. Coherent CEO Jim Anderson pointed to their long-standing ties, saying they’re “proud to expand our 20-year relationship with NVIDIA.” NVIDIA Newsroom
Coherent said in a filing it raised $2 billion in cash by selling 7,788,161 shares to Nvidia at $256.80 apiece through a private deal. The same filing outlined that Nvidia will get access to five more Coherent product families linked to co-packaged optics, a tech push aimed at moving optical components closer to chips to reduce power consumption and increase bandwidth.
Morgan Stanley’s Joseph Moore, in a note, pointed out that Nvidia’s share price hasn’t kept up with rising expectations, describing the current setup as “a surprisingly good entry point.” But he also flagged new hurdles: optics and power are shaping up to be the next bottlenecks for AI racks. Investing.com
The optics move surfaces as investors demand evidence Nvidia can ramp up “inference,” the crucial phase where trained AI models spit out answers. On Feb. 28, Reuters reported Nvidia is working on a new inference platform, tipped to debut at GTC, following an earlier Wall Street Journal piece. Nvidia and OpenAI stayed silent, and Reuters added it was unable to independently confirm the story. Reuters
Still, all the optics spending doesn’t answer the main issue dogging the stock: just how long can the AI buildout keep up this pace. These deals aren’t exclusive, fab construction isn’t quick, and if customers start pulling back on orders or move more workloads to their own chips, supply guarantees alone aren’t enough to shield the share price.
Nvidia’s GTC event lands in San Jose from March 16 to 19. CEO Jensen Huang is slated for the keynote on Monday, March 16. Traders are zeroed in on potential photonics networking details and hoping for specifics on the next-gen inference chips.
